Ministry of Mines has launched Web Portal for Star Rating of Major Mineral Mines. The Portal was launched by the Minister of State for Mines, Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal yesterday. According to official release, Mr. Goyal said the Scheme of Star Rating will be a vital step for ensuring compliance of environmental protection and social responsibility by the mining sector and has given a deadline for Star Rating of all mines by 31st of December, 2016.<br/>Based on the performance of the mining leases, a one to five star rating would be given to the mines. The positive impact of getting higher Star Rating will drive miners to quickly adopt sustainable mining practices. <br/>A web enabled online system for evaluation of measures has been developed with the help of National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG), Hyderabad. <br/> The Ministry through Indian Bureau of Mines has developed a template for Scheme of Star Rating of Mines. The main objective of this system is to bring all mines to a minimum standard of Star Rating in the shortest possible time frame to adopt sustainable practices.