Report No. 62

10.38. Item 5.- Item 5 refers to persons employed in three kinds of employments-

(a) in any mine as defined in the Mines Act, in any mining operation, or

(b) in any mine as so defined, in any kind of work other than clerical work, incidental 10 or connected with any mining operation or (connected) with the mineral obtained, or

(c) in any mine as so defined, in any kind of work whatsoever below the ground.

10.39. That the employment under item 5 must be in a mine, is a requirement common to the three kinds of the work enumerated above,-though this aspect could have been brought out more clearly. A suitable change is desirable to bring it out.

10.39A. It is, in our view, also desirable to make it clear that in item 5, the expression "mine" is intended to cover also mines connected with minor minerals, item 5 applies to mines as defined in1 the Mines Act, 1952. That Act defines a mine as meaning "any excavation where any operation for the purpose of searching for or obtaining minerals has been or is being carried on," and as including certain other things not material for our purpose. The definition does not exclude minor minerals. The expression "minor minerals" is defined in a later Act as follows2:-

(c) "minor minerals" means building stones, gravel, ordinary clay, ordinary sand other than sand used for prescribed purposes, and any other mineral which the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare to be a minor -mineral."

A clarification to the effect that item 5 covers minor minerals would be useful.

1. Section 3(1)(j), Mines Act, 1952.

2. Section 2(e), Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act, (1957).