Excise Duty on Minerals (Labour Welfare) Act, 1967

The Excise Duty on Minerals (Labour Welfare) Act, 1967 taxes certain minerals as they leave the mines and uses the money to fund housing and welfare programmes for mine workers. Section 3 imposes the duty on minerals listed in the Schedule, at a rate the Federal Government sets by notification, subject to floor and ceiling limits (the extract shows the rate was later amended to be not less than one rupee and not more than five rupees per ton); the government can also exempt specific minerals from the duty.

The money collected goes into the Mines Labour Housing and General Welfare Fund (Section 4), which is split into two separate accounts — a housing account and a general welfare account. Section 5 spells out how each account can be spent: the general welfare account can pay grants-in-aid to mine owners who maintain dispensary services (with the extract mentioning a threshold that no grant is payable if a mine owner spends less than eighty rupees a month on that dispensary), and more broadly can fund public health and sanitation measures, water supply, education, improved living standards, and transport to and from work for mine labour. The housing account, managed by a Mines Labour Housing Board (Section 6, referenced but not detailed in this extract), pays for building and maintaining worker housing.

The Act also establishes a Miners Welfare Board to oversee welfare spending, and requires annual published accounts and audited reports on both the housing and general welfare accounts, with the housing account specifically audited by a chartered accountant. A Commissioner (the Mines Labour Welfare Commissioner) and other officers are appointed to administer the scheme (Section 9, referenced but not detailed here). The tail of the extract lists dozens of specific minerals from the Schedule — quartz, soapstone, sulphur, granite, mica, and many others — each with its excise rate, mostly three or five rupees per ton, though because rates in the Schedule can be revised by notification these historical figures should be checked against the current official Schedule before being relied on. This is an old law (repealing an earlier 1947 Act) and has been amended by later ordinances, so its current wording should be verified.