The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : New mineral policy soon, says TSR

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Wednesday, Oct 03, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

New mineral policy soon, says TSR

Special Correspondent

— PHOTO: P.V. SIVAKUMAR

All ears: Union Minister of State for Mines T. Subbirami Reddy and Minister for Mines and Geology P. Sabita Reddy participating in a conference in Hyderabad on Tuesday .

HYDERABAD: The Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act, 1957, will be amended in the winter session of Parliament to incorporate provisions of the new national mineral policy, said Union Minister of State for Mines T. Subbirami Reddy.

Inaugurating a national symposium on ‘Mining today – prospects and problems’ organised by the Mining Engineers Association of India (MEAI) here on Tuesday, Mr. Reddy said the Union Cabinet would shortly clear the policy.

Obstacles cleared

He maintained that all obstacles to the new policy were cleared after the Centre succeeded in persuading the Chief Ministers of three mineral-rich States – Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand – to agree to its provisions as they would help them. With this, a broad consensus was achieved on the policy.

He said the country was hardly exploring five per cent of its mineral wealth currently, but the activity would go up substantially with the policy coming into effect.

Mines and Geology Minister P. Sabita Indra Reddy talked about the difficulties faced by the State Government in beach sand mining.

New minerals

Y. Sri Lakshmi, Secretary, Industries and Commerce, said new minerals were surfacing in the State. She wanted the conference to discuss how the huge dumps of waste in mining areas could be reprocessed by other industries. S.J. Sibal, Deputy Director General, Mines Safety, Southern Region, said coal mining was more hazardous than before as excavations were taking place at much deeper horizons.

The Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) was planning to go to a depth of 450 metres in one of the open-cast mines. The operations were associated with problems of human safety, ventilation and gases at deeper levels.

R.P. Gupta, President, MEAI, said there were 572 working coal mines in the country. V.D. Rajagopal, Director, Mines, also spoke.

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