Mining policy by December 31

The union mining ministry has set up a committee under Madhukar Gupta to formulate a mining policy and its report would be submitted by December 31, 2003.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), C D Arha, mining secretary said, the committee would suggest ways to make the sector investor, market and user friendly.

It would also provide suggestions for a single window clearance for foreign investment proposals.

Arha said mining revenues today were around Rs 60,000 crore, or two per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Mining accounted for 21 per cent of exports.

There was enormous scope for growth in the mining sector, with state-of-the-art technology based projects set to attract foreign investment.

Nearly 73 foreign firms were likely to invest Rs 4040 crore, besides Rs 19000 crore by state -owned Coal India Limited by the end of current five -year plan.

Speaking later, the chairman of Nalco, C Venkataramana, said that the company was still awaiting clearance for its Rs 4,100 crore expansion programme to take its refining capacity from 1.575 million tonne to 2.1 million tonne. Smelting capacity would increase from 345,000 tonne to 460,000 tonne and metal production would touch 3 lakh tonne.

Kishor Kumar, vice president (marketing) of Hindustan Zinc, said the metals sector in India could grow immensely as per capita metal consumption was very low now.