Comments
West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra on Wednesday urged public and private sector companies to step up investments in mineral exploration in order to raise mining output.
While India’s mining sector is growing at 7.3 per cent, the expenditure on exploration is as low as 0.3 per cent of the total global spends in the category. “Both public and private sector companies should seriously consider investing in exploration” he said.
Mitra was speaking at the inaugural of The Indian Mining and Machinery Exhibition, organised by CII.
The Minister said the West Bengal government will approach the Centre for merchant mining licence for the prolific Deocha Pachami block. The block, which is now allotted for captive use to West Bengal Power Development Corporation Ltd, a state-owned energy generation company, is estimated to have huge reserves in excess of captive needs.
“Once we are in possession of the coal block and exploration by the West Bengal Power Development Corporation starts, we will look at the prospect of opening it up for merchant mining. We will write to the Centre in this regard, but its all for the future,” he told reporters.
Australia Deputy High Commissioner to India, Rod Hilton, expressed his country’s willingness to work more closely with the West Bengal Government on exploration.
According to Coal India CMD, Anil Kumar Jha, sustainable mining is the need of the hour. While total coal reserves in the country is over 300 billion tonnes and would last for 100 years, but there is a pressing need to extract minerals with due adherence to environmental norms.
“Despite increased output, demand for coal is mounting as new power production capacities are coming up. Moreover, there is a need to adopt new technologies,” he said.
Local manufacturing
DK Hota, CMD, BEML, called for strengthening local manufacturing to give a boost to the ‘Make in India’ programme and suggested that forging partnerships with technology-providing firms could be a way forward in the coming days.
Germany’s Consul General to Kolkata, Michael Feiner, spoke on the strategic partnership between India and Germany on mining technology.
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.