Government underlines need to step up mineral exploration
DSIJ Intelligence / 11 Jul 2017
the Minister said that high-value, strategic and import substitution minerals were the priority minerals for exploration to make India self-sufficient in these natural resources.
Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines Piyush Goyal underlined the need to step up mineral exploration in the country that is currently constrained due to lack of private sector participation (PPP) in the activity.
He was addressing a conference on ‘Indian Mining Industry 2030 – Way Forward’, organised by FICCI jointly with the Ministry of Mines, Government of India.
Addressing the industry’s concerns, the Minister said that high-value, strategic and import substitution minerals were the priority minerals for exploration to make India self-sufficient in these natural resources.
Goyal said that the time was ripe to reflect on where we had gone wrong and suggested a PPP model could be tried out for giving a fillip to mineral exploration. He urged FICCI to set up a committee comprising of young mining aspirants to develop a position paper to speed up the exploration activities.