Sriprakash Jaiswal, Minister of State (I/C) for Coal has called for concerted efforts on exploration and strengthening of human resources for long term sustainability of the coal sector.
Speaking at the inaugural function of the National Seminar on ‘Energy – Synergy Through Coal’ in New Delhi today, he said proper environmental management and reclamation of mined-out areas need to be focused upon by the producers of coal for increasing the credibility of coal mining in the society. He said coal sector must adopt best practices and state-of-the-art technologies for improving production, productivity and safety to be competitive in the market. The Minister also called for Public-private partnership in rail and road infrastructure development in remote areas.
Emphasising the need for adoption of clean coal technologies including coal washing, coal bed methane, coal mine methane, underground coal gasification, coal liquefaction etc, Shri Jaiswal said these are also important in improving the coal usage in an environment-friendly manner.
On hurdles in taking up new projects and continuing the ongoing projects mainly on account of delays in obtaining necessary clearances, Shri Jaiswal said that the Ministry of Coal is in constant dialogue with the Ministry of Environment & Forests for expediting the clearances and the State Governments are also being pursued for their cooperation in timely acquisition of land for coal projects and to resolve the issue of rehabilitation of project-affected persons in a mutually agreeable manner.
Calling for augmenting domestic production from all the available resources for meeting the projected demand for energy, the Minister pointed out that the coal demand which reached a level of about 550 million tonnes in 2008-09, is envisaged to be over 2 billion tonnes by 2031-32. While the public sector is leading in production, the Government has increased the number of players by allotting the number of captive blocks to augment the production within the existing legislative framework. The growth in production of 5.4% achieved in the past three and half decades would need to increase to over 7% in the coming decade in order to match the growing demand for coal, he added.
Jaiswal said strengthening the infrastructure for coal movement and coal handling and port infrastructure for facilitating large scale imports are some of the critical areas we need to concentrate on for increasing the production and despatch of coal. He also emphasized a need for large coal consumers like the power sector to adopt technologies for improving the efficiency of energy utilisation from coal in order to reduce emission levels of green house gases.
The two-day seminar was organized by the World Confederation of Productivity Science, India.