A new mining policy, focusing on gold and diamond mining apart from coal, would be placed in the next session of Parliament, Union Minister of State for Mines T S Reddy said today. "At present, more than 99% of gold and diamond worth Rs 1,40,000 crore are imported and the new mining policy will lay stress on the gold and diamond mining," Reddy said on the sidelines of 2nd Asian Mining Congress.He said that a reserve of 15,000 tons of gold had been identified in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, while diamond reserve was found in AP, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.The new mining policy would facilitate global companies to take part in gold and diamond mining, which requires huge investment and advanced technology.Reddy said that 95% recommendations of the Hoda Committee had been accepted in the new mining policy and that it had nothing to do with export of iron ore. The issue of iron ore export would be dealt with by Commerce and Finance Ministries, he said.Mining of coal would be vital to thermal power generation. The demand for coal in the country would go up to 1.24 lakh MW from the present 96,000 MW, he said.
