New Delhi: Aiming to boost India’s mineral output by 200 per cent in the next seven years, Union Minister Pralhad Joshi said Thursday about Rs 1,500 crore lying in exploration trust, could be used for accelerating this work.
Pralhad Joshi said the mining industry is undergoing reforms through transformative investor-friendly interventions like the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act 2015, which introduced transparent and competitive auction process for grant of mineral concessions besides setting up of National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) to accelerate mineral exploration activity.
“More than Rs 1,500 crore has been accumulated in the NMET fund during last three years. And as far as the information I have, today out of that… around Rs 200 crores have been spent. Hence for exploration activities there is a fund to invest,” Pralhad Joshi said urging geoscientists to come forward to unearth deep-seated minerals as demands on mineral resources in the country are at an all-time high.
“Mining sector has a pivotal role to play in the ‘Make in India’ vision of the Prime Minister. Growth of economy is dependent on uninterrupted supply of minerals, which form the basic raw materials for industry… The Government aims to increase mineral production (in value terms) by 200 per cent in seven years,” the Minister said during National ‘Geoscience Award 2018’ programme here.
Joshi pointed out that since the search for the near surface deposits have reached a point of saturation, the country now faces the challenge of finding deep seated and concealed mineral resources by applying state-of-the-art technologies.
Joshi also informed that the Geological Survey of India has almost doubled its exploration activity by implementing about 400 mineral exploration projects on various mineral commodities.
PTI
