Centre to review policies on mines privatisation

The Union Coal and Mines Ministry is all set to review the previous NDA government's policies on privatisation of mines and would follow the Common Minimum Programme with respect to privatisation.

The ministry will also undertake the long pending review of wage agreements and the pension scheme.

Addressing a press conference, Dasari Narayana Rao, minister of state for coal and mines said: "The policies on privatisation of new mines would be reviewed and also no profit making unit would be privatised as per the Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance."

He said that the ministry would give priority in improving the safety conditions in underground mining operations across the country.

It will also take up required measures to overcome the supply gap in coal of 0.2 billion tonne.

According to the ministry, the annual production of coal is around 3.5 billion tonne as against an annual demand of 3.7 billion tonne. Rao said, "From what the secretaries and senior officials told me, the safety measures for miners, especially for underground miners needs to be upgraded to avoid accidents."

He attributed the main delay in lifting the levels of production to procedural and policy bottlenecks. "The new government would ensure that such bottlenecks would be removed so as to promote industrialisation," he said.

He said that to further increase the mineral production in Andhra Pradesh, 38 reconnaissance permits and 11 prospecting licences have been issued for exploration of diamonds and other precious minerals.

The state at the moment receives a royalty of around Rs 130 crore per year from mineral production. "Another area that the ministry would review is the royalty rates to benefit states," Rao said.