The Centre has stressed on the policies and decisions encouraging private players in the field of mineral exploration which would bring more and more mines into production in the country.
Addressing a technical session during ongoing ‘Jharkhand Mining Show-2017’ Niranjan Kumar Singh, Joint Secretary with the Ministry of Mines also called on the State Government for more investment.
“Mining sector should be incentivised for exploration activities with the help of agencies appointed by the State government. In its bit, the State Government should invest more in exploration activities and come out with a comprehensive mining and mineral policy covering the entire gamut of the sector.
Since, coal resources are located in remote areas, support of locals is a must,” said the official speaking at a session on ‘Opportunities, Challenges & Risks in Mineral Exploration’ in the summit on Tuesday.
He also praised the State Government for taking a pro-active approach in optimizing its core strength.
Speakers were for modifying policies in a way that those enable industries to undertake exploring more aggressively. Facts suggest that out of the total 84 auctioned coal blocks, only 18 are in working conditions at present.
BN Shukla, Director, Coal Resource Development, CMPDI, said the investment requirement for exploratory drilling will be about Rs 500 crore besides, talking about over all development in mining areas.
“Since most of coalfield areas are still backward, opening of coal mines and employment generation along with District Mineral Fund (DMF) will change the living standard of the people in and around the miming areas,” Shukla said.
He also said to enhance coal production, large scale mechanised mines are to be planned and executed in optimum level with the help of highly dependable exploration results.
RN Jha, Director (Technical), MECl, said, “Opportunities are galore in exploration of rare earth and base metals. MECl is doing a lot of work in the field of exploration as that is that is the only way to gather resources.
In spite of ample challenges, we have to take exploration as a serious concern,” he said.
AK Sarangi, Executive Director (Projects - North), UCIl underscored the need for indigenous uranium and an effective Government policy.
He mentioned operations in regions – with social conflicts, issues of land acquisition for new projects, influence of NGOs and negative public perception on uranium mining as the challenges and risks.
On ‘Risk Management’, Dr Jayanta Bhattacharya, Professor, Mining Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, said mining is just another business; business making and capital efficiency must be held supreme.
“State Government must have proper knowledge base and skill sets to identify opportunity and risk,” he added.
At the three-day show several mining related companies including HEC have placed their stalls attracting large number of business delegates from the nation-wide companies.
Apart from the products and services for mining sector, HEC has also displayed its other product range, future plans and its contributions in the nation-building.
0 HEC has displayed about its collaborations for technology sharing or transfer with foreign companies under ‘Make-in-India’ campaign.