The shift to gross calorific value-based grading of coal aligned domestic prices with international benchmarks.
An inquiry has been ordered by the Director General of Mines Safety and a high-level committee of experts has been constituted by Coal India to investigate the causes of the accident.
Union Labour Ministry has announced pension scheme for unorganised labour hands like mine and cine workers.
India offers policy stability, transparency and consultative process of governance to incubate investment, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday as she invited investments in prospecting energy resources in the country. Stressing that there is a need for investments in coal, she said, "We need greater investments also to help in gasification of coal. I invite all of you to energetically participate in the (sixth round of commercial mines) auction processes which have been launched today and keep your options also further extended for greater extraction of minerals in India." During this 'Amrit Kaal', India needs all the basic minerals as the country is in the process of rapid growth, she added.
Environment ministry has given its go-ahead to POSCO's planned steel plant in the country, but has asked it to spend on "social commitments", a company spokesman said, raising the project's cost by $600 million to $12.6 billion.
The Cabinet can take a decision on the matter only after the Election Commission's approval.
The divestment department has proposed that public sector units involved in mining ores alone should qualify for 'natural asset' status while imposing additional norms concering employment of labour.\n\n\n\n
How the 4 ministries have performed
The Trinamool Congress leader had been languishing without a portfolio for over four months.
All the 12 gram sabhas held in July-August last year had unanimously expressed opposition to the mining operation in the hills saying it would violate their social, cultural and religious rights.
The government, which currently holds 29.5 per cent stake in HZL and 49 per cent stake in Balco, is looking at exiting from the two firms in which Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group holds majority stake.
Select committees on Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill and Coal Mines Bill recommended their approval without any change
The mining ministry's inordinate delay in giving approval to group firm Hindustan Zinc to buy London-based Anglo American's zinc mines has forced the company to route it through Sterlite.
'Not even a single rupee from the electoral bonds should be allowed to be used in the election.' 'If it is used in the election, it will taint India's electoral process itself.'
The Government of India has decided to launch a massive rural public works scheme, 'Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan', to "empower and provide livelihood opportunities to the returnee migrant workers and rural citizens". Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch this scheme on June 20 through video conference in the presence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.
A day after the Union ministry of environment and forest suspended the environmental clearances for all the 93 mining leases in Goa, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has said that he will appeal to prime minister to "set things right" in the green ministry headed by Jayanti Natarajan.
The Coal Ministry has decided to constitute a six-member panel for valuation and assessment of the 42 running coal blocks which were deallocated by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court order has created a new legal framework for coal mining by ruling that only the Union government and its entities can do it.
'All those who participated in the agitation were branded as anti-nationals.'
In 11 out of 29 coal mines successfully e-auctioned, a number of qualified bidders in the e-auction stage were from the same company/parent subsidiary company coalition/joint venture, CAG said.
Govt to issue ownership rights of 15 coal mines on Mar 23.
Government will start to auction the rights to up to 70 diamond and gold exploration zones to mining companies this year
The Modi government's e-auction policy for coal, meant to shield the consumer against hike in electricity charges, has already led to serious allegations of cartelisation among the bidding corporates. Matters came to such a pass that the government at one point last week was considering inviting the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the matter, reports Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
Favours stricter impact mitigation rules, monitoring.
In a bid to break the monopoly of public sector over coal, the government proposed to introduce legislative changes allowing for private mining while liberalising norms for allotment of captive blocks permitting trading of coal.
The mines ministry has put a conditional offer to offload 10 per cent stake in Nalco, saying that the money accrued from such a sale would be invested in the PSU.
The new mining policy must be rock solid
The Environment Ministry was hit by controversies in the year gone by which saw clearances for two big ticket projects -- POSCO and Lavasa -- and exit of Jairam Ramesh as the green minister.
Sourcing bauxite from other states to add Rs 600 crore to cost.
The next auction for bauxite blocks in Odisha may see heightened interest with Adani Group charting an entry into alumina refining and existing players looking to boost capacity. Hemant Sharma, principal secretary, Odisha industries department, said that three bauxite blocks have been scheduled for auctions this year. Adani Group - which will be setting up a 4-MMTPA alumina refinery and may enter aluminium production - is expected to bid for mines, though raw material linkages shall be available from Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC).
The demand for minerals, boulders and sand is so great that it has fueled a black market and the goons who control this trade do not hesitate to kill law enforcement officers and reporters who have tried to expose them.
After one stop-work order on the Rs 54,000-crore Posco project, a four-member panel appointed by the Union ministry of environment and forests has dealt a body blow to yet another big-ticket investor in Orissa, the London-based Vedanta Resources Ltd.
The mines ministry has sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention in bailing out aluminium giant Nalco of the acute paucity of coal, which has forced the PSU to close down two of its captive power plants.
With this the only minister without a portfolio is Oscar Fernandes
The bill has now been sent to the Mines Ministry for fine tuning and the final draft is to be placed before the group of ministers at its next meeting.
Coal industry expert Sunjoy Joshi tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com that the NDA's e-auction of coal blocks will not solve the fundamental problems that dog the industry.
India's industrial production slipped to an 18-month low, contracting by 0.8 per cent in August, mainly due to a decline in output of the manufacturing and mining sectors, according to official data released on Wednesday. The data showed that the previous low in industrial output growth was a contraction of 3.2 per cent in February 2021. Factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had expanded by 13 per cent in August 2021. The IIP grew by 2.2 per cent in July this year.
The central government is expected to complete the auction of the 5.9-million tonne (mt) lithium reserves discovered in the Reasi district of the northern Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) by the end of this calendar year, Union Mines Secretary Vivek Bharadwaj said on the sidelines of the launch of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) report on 'New-Age Energy Minerals' on Tuesday. "Auction will be over by the end of this year," said Bharadwaj, adding, "We have already recommended a transaction advisor to the J&K government for the auction of lithium reserves." However, the exact timeline for an auction will be decided by J&K authorities, Union mines minister Pralhad Joshi said in Parliament last month.
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