The Hindu : Business : Coal Mines (Amendment) Bill put on backburner

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Thursday, Nov 25, 2004

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Coal Mines (Amendment) Bill put on backburner

By Our Special Correspondent

KOLKATA, NOV. 24. The United Progressive Alliance Government is not pursuing with the Coal Mines Nationalisation (Amendment) Bill, 2000, the Union Minister of State for Coal and Mines, Dasari Narayan Rao, said.

Addressing the press on the occasion of the seventh International Mining and Machinery Exhibition (IMME) here today, the Minister said the department was not going in for any blanket privatisation now and the sector was open to the private sector only for captive consumers of coal in steel and power sectors. The IMME is being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Referring to the present coal shortage, the Minister said a high-power committee was set up by the ministry a week ago to address this issue. Later, the Coal Secretary, Prakash Chandra Parikh, said the committee was also examining the possibility of reorganising Coal India Ltd (CIL). "CIL subsidiaries should play a larger role and we are examining our options without abolishing CIL," he said. The recommendations of this committee would be incorporated in `A Vision Document for Coal: 2030' which is expected to be ready in three months.

Demand exceeds supply

Mr. Rao said despite the annual increases in coal production, demand was outstripping supply and a 55 million tonne gap was projected by the Tenth Five Year Plan. This was anticipated to increase to 95 million tonnes by the Eleventh Plan period.

"Frequent change of ministers, delays in environment and forest clearances and clearances from the respective state governments was hampering projects," he said, adding that some projects had suffered 8-10 year delays on these grounds.

Single window

A proposal to clear mining projects within a year has been forwarded to the Cabinet Committee, Mr. Rao said. A single window would set be up at the state level and the Centre for affording these fast track clearances, the Minister said. He also said that in view of the current coal shortage, the ministry had decided to crack down on bogus coal companies."

"We are reviewing the matter seriously and will refer these companies to the CBI in case they were found guilty — many small companies were being closed down since due to the malpractices of these companies which were thriving in a period of shortage," he said.

Earlier, the West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, said companies from South Africa (which was a partner country at IMME) were welcome to make investments in the state.

He also assured his government's co-operation for the revival of CIL subsidiary, Eastern Coalfields Ltd.

The Coal Minister said that ECL was showing signs of improvement and the Centre had plans to mechanise manual ECL mines at an investment of about Rs. 100 crores.

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