ISLAMABAD, Jan 4: The centre is likely to take over the subject of mineral resources from provinces in view of their 50 years of dismal performance in the development and commercial exploitation of precious natural resources.

Official sources told Dawn that a new thinking has emerged in the recent months that provincial bureaucracy was not serious to introduce long-term measures, either due to lack of technical expertise, funds or other reasons, that could help tap precious natural resources. They seldom invest in infrastructure development and use the revenues of royalty, etc., for their day-to-day expenditure, said the sources.

The non-implementation of National Mineral Policy announced in 1995 and subsequent dilly-dallying tactics used by the provincial governments to honour a directive of President General Pervez Musharraf to establish provincial mineral departments headed by technical experts, has pushed the federal government for alternatives.

In May, the president had given one month deadline to the provinces to complete the job. All provincial governments failed.

The president reprimanded them in June and extended the deadline for another month. This time provinces issued the notification and appointed in one case a police officer, a retired major in another province and a DMG officer in the third case, instead of mining engineers as envisaged under the mineral policy, said the sources.

The federal cabinet secretary, through another memorandum to the provincial government last week, expressed displeasure of the competent authority over lack of progress on that front. As a result, the federal government has not released an amount of Rs50 million that

it had allocated to put in place the offices and related machinery of provincial mineral departments.

Two options are currently being given serious thought. First, the president to direct the corps commanders to take, for the time being, a leading role for the development and commercial exploitation of mineral resources to an optimum level.

By the time civil rule is restored, the process of exploration and development should be streamlined on a fast tract basis and taken to a stage where provincial bureaucracy is unable to create hurdles in future.

Second, to introduce a constitutional amendment that could transfer, with some compensations but once and for all, the subject of mineral resources from the provinces to the federal concurrent legislative list.

The sources said the ministries of petroleum and finance believe that this issue should also be covered in the proposed constitutional package the government wants to introduce some time this year.

In the federal legislative list under section 70 (4) of the constitution, mineral resources used only for the nuclear energy generation fall under the federal government jurisdiction.

All remaining mineral resources except those “mineral oil and natural gas; liquids and substances declared by Federal Law to be dangerously inflammable” are provincial subjects.