Indian govt steps up mineral exploration ahead of private sector entry – by Ajoy K Das – MiningWeekly.com – June 13, 2016)

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KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – Indian government-owned and -operated mineral companies are stepping up exploration projects across the country as the government hopes it would help catalyse more private sector investment.

“The Indian government has put in place an efficient framework to attract private, domestic and foreign investment into mineral exploration in the country. But private investments in long gestation projects typically come in with a lag and, therefore, various government-owned entities are being prodded to take a lead,” an official in the Ministry of Mines said.

There has been a flurry of activity among provincial and federal government-owned mineral and mineral processing companies to announce exploration projects.

The government of the eastern Indian coastal province of Odisha had entered into a tripartite agreement with Ministry of Mines and Mineral Exploration Corporation of India to explore two coal blocks and, depending on the success, the Odisha government would earmark more mineral blocks for this new entity.

The largest iron-ore government miner, NMDC Limited, had tied up with the Indian Space Research Organisation to use space technology for exploration and other projects to gain access to remote sensing capabilities and to establish a Geographical Information System laboratory at the NMDC headquarters.

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