Comments
India attracted foreign direct investment (FDI) worth $729 million in the mining sector between April 2007 and December 2010, the Mines Minister, Mr Dinsha Patel, informed the Lok Sabha on Friday.
In a written reply, Mr Patel said the FDI inflows were highest in 2007-08 at $444.26 million and lowest in 2008-09 at $34.22 million.
However, in the last financial year, the FDI inflows touched $174 million. In the current financial year till end of December, the FDI inflows stood at $75.90 million, Mr Patel said.
The mining sector was opened up for private investments including FDI in 1993 after the announcement of the New Mineral Policy.
FDI up to 100 per cent is allowed in exploration, mining, mineral processing and metallurgy under the automatic route for all non-fuel and non-atomic minerals including diamonds and mineral stones.
Karnataka tops
During the April-December period of the current fiscal, Karnataka received the highest FDI of $31.75 million, followed by Maharashtra at $28.28 million.
In the past four years, the highest FDI inflow of $378.62 million was reported by the RBI office in Kolkata covering West Bengal, Sikkim and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Replying to another query, Mr Patel said the mining and quarrying sector contributed 2.52 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at current prices in 2009-10.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.