December 02, 2008

New mineral policy to be discussed in winter session

Dr T Subbarami Reddy union minister of state for mines said that discussions have been carried out for the mineral bearing states to obtain a hearing by the centre before the finalisation of the new national mineral policy seem to have failed.

Dr Reddy said that "The allegation that the centre is trying to snatch the powers of the mineral rich states and dominate them is baseless. In fact, these states would gain and earn cash under the proposed new policy. Everything has been discussed and clarified. The policy would be placed before the Cabinet and then to the Parliament during the winter session." He also claimed to have held detailed discussions with the Mr Naveen Patnaik chief minister of Orissa and clarified all issues.

Justifying the policy initiatives, he pointed out the present rules are time consuming, discouraging and old fashioned. The new policy would attract global companies who would, in turn, bring in the technology for improved and sustainable mining activity.
Drawing attention to another significant provision under the proposed new mineral policy Dr Reddy said: "Earlier applications for PL or ML used to be held up for years together, but now a fixed time frame has been given, failing which the applicant can move a tribunal which would be soon set up. The centre will have no role in this, and the tribunal would judge on the lines of merit of the applicant."

It may be noted here that the chief ministers of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Orissa had raised several objections to the Hoda committee report. The mineral policy, which has been formulated, is based on this. They had jointly sent petitions to the centre and declared that they be taken into confidence before the draft policy is placed for cabinet approval.