VPRS 14979 Plan Index and Tracking Guide

This series consists of an index to the locality plan numbers by mining district created by the Mines Department (VA 612). The index was a numerical tracking device arranged by mining district and colour coded to assist with the location of a lease plan by district and locality plan number.The colour of the number listed in the index reflects the status of the plan at the time of the index's creation as being a Dead Plan, Cut Plan, Roll Plan, Missing, or Live (still active). Dead Plans were Locality Plans that were no longer active. Each Dead Plan usually depicted several smaller Lease Plans. Cut Plans were individual Lease Plans that were cut from the original Locality Plans and arranged in a storage box or pasted into a volume according to mining district and by lease number. Roll Plans were larger Lease Plans that were cut from the Locality Plans, but were rolled for storage rather than boxed due to their size. Live Plans were still in use within the Department.From the 1860's, mining had been organised by mining district. Each mining district had a separate numerical lease number sequence. There were 7 mining districts: Ararat, Ballarat, Beechworth, Bendigo/Sandhurst, Castlemaine, Gippsland, and Maryborough. The Mines Act 1958 (Act No. 6320) brought about a system change as mining districts were abandoned in favour of a system based on parish. New lease plans were constructed at this time with a single numerical sequence.This series reflects the changes made to the original recordkeeping system after attempts at rearranging the Locality Plans had resulted in the creation of Cut Plans and Roll Plans.