After dragging its feet over the issue, the government is now scrambling to spend as much as possible of the Rs 3,690 crore of districtmineral fund(DMF) it had collected from across the 31 districts in the past seven years. The fund was collected as part of a national policy and was to be used to restore regions ravaged bymining.
Of the Rs 3,690 crore (until November 2022) collected over the past seven years, the government has spent only Rs 1,671 crore (or 45%), although an action plan to spend Rs 3,759 crore was drawn up for all 31 districts.
The Centre decided to set up DMF in 2015-16 for reclamation and rehabilitation (R&R) of mining hit areas in every district. Accordingly, legislation was passed to implement the decision at the state-level andKarnatakabegan collecting funds from mine lease owners.
Of the 31 districts in Karnataka, the highest collection of DMF was in Ballari (Rs 1,741 cr), followed by Vijayanagara (Rs 439 cr) and Kalaburagi (Rs 475 cr).
The least collection was in Yadgir (Rs 1. 4 cr), Bidar (Rs 1. 9 cr) and Kodagu (Rs 1. 6 cr).