Union Minister of State for Coal and Mines, Dasari Narayan Rao, said the United Progressive Alliance Government was not pursuing the Coal Mines Nationalisation (Amendment) Bill, 2000. He said the sector was open to the private sector only for captive consumers of coal in steel and power sectors.
The government has identified 138 blocks for privatisation, 49 of which had been already allotted to private parties. P C Parakh, Secretary, Department of Coal said the process of privatisation of coal blocks would be complete within two months.
The move to partial privatisation is being fast tracked thanks to the realisation that India is facing a huge coal shortage. The Government of India's Ministry of Coal has identified a 55 million tonne supply gap in 2006-07, expected to increase to 95Mt by 2011-12.
Parakh said underground mining contributed only 20% of total coal production while 80% was from open cast mining but that increased underground mining should be encouraged because coal quality was better.
Minister of State for Coal and Mines Dr. Rao said efforts were being made to “remove the cobwebs that have been adversely affecting the coal sector over a period of time.”
He said coal production will be increased through increased supply from existing mines, advancing production from new projects and speeding up the allocation of blocks for captive mining.
A proposal to clear mining projects within a year has been forwarded to the Cabinet Committee, Rao said. A single window mechanism would be introduced to ensure early approvals both for coal and mining projects along with procedures, rules and regulations being further simplified to encourage private investments.
An Expert Committee has been set up for a comprehensive review of India’s coal sector, including an examination of the role of Coal India. The recommendations of this committee would be incorporated in “A Vision Document for Coal: 2030”, expected to be ready in three months.
Any efforts to increase India‘s coal output will be good news to equipment suppliers. This year the German mining machinery industry expects to export machinery worth 13 million euros to India, up from 10 million euros last year.
Speaking at 7th International Mining and Machinery exhibition this week, Andreas Jung, head of division (coal and lignite mining), German Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour, said export of German machinery to India amounted to 21% of the total machinery imported by India.
In related news this week, The Singareni Collieries Company, was forced to cut production to 40,000 tonnes as against its normal daily production of 110,000 tonnes due to a strike by five unions. The company operates 11 opencast and 55 underground mines working reserves aggregating to 8000 million tones with a workforce of 93,000.
