NEW DELHI: Claiming that the Narendra Modi government has ushered in transparency, removed barriers and taken care of environmental concerns related to the coal sector, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday that the new policies would make India self-reliant in mines and minerals.
Addressing the sixth ‘National Seminar on Mines and Minerals’, organised by the Coal and Mines ministry, Shah said the government’s effort to introduce competition in the sector has contributed in making India the “fastest-growing economy in the world”.
Taking a dig at the Congress-led UPA dispensation over the coal scam and making light of its ‘first come, first served’ policy, Shah defended the Modi government’s auction route. “Corruption had dug deep roots in the coal sector for decades. There were court cases in allocation of coal blocks. The CAG had raised several questions and many allocations were cancelled earlier,” he said.
Pointing out that competition in the mining sector and the Centre’s creation of proper infrastructure for extracting mineral resources had pushed exports, Shah said coal production, which stood at 556 million tonnes in 2013-14, increased to 777 million tonnes in 2021-22.