After finance minister Arun Jaitley's announcement during Budget speech that the government will abolish 13 cesses across ministries where collection is less than Rs 50 crore, the labour ministry has identified four of the six cesses levied to promote workers' welfare including the cesses on mining of iron ore, manganese ore, limestone and dolomite, and chrome ore. However, the cess on beedi workers as well as construction cess under the Building & Other Construction Workers Act will continue. This move could spell to give relief for both the taxpayers and tax collectors but is not unlikely to go down well with trade unions, which are up in arms against some of the recent decisions of the government, calling them pro-corporate.
In the year 2015-16, the combined collected from iron ore, manganese ore and chrome ore mining stood at Rs 16.7 crore compared with Rs 15.14 crore in the previous fiscal. Besides, the annual revenue from cess on limestone and dolomite stood at Rs 15.98 crore in the same period as against Rs 14.46 crore in the previous fiscal.
Cess was levied at the rate of Rs 1 per metric tonne on iron ore, Rs 4 per metric tonne on manganese ore and Rs 6 per metric tonne on chrome ore under the Iron Ore Mines, Manganese Ore Mines and Chrome Ore Mines Labour Welfare Cess Act, 1976. Similarly, cess on limestone and dolomite was levied at Rs 1 per metric tonne under the Limestone and Dolomite Mines Labour Welfare Fund Act, 1972.