The parliamentary committee on public undertakings strongly recommended injudicious export of raw natural resources like iron ore, coal to be banned.
The committee headed by V. Kishore Chandra, S. Deo presented its report in the two Houses of Parliament on Tuesday.
“In view of the emerging scenario of depletion of precious resources like minerals owing to injudicious export and illegal mining, the committee emphasise upon the need to revisit the National Mineral Policy for effectively addressing these issues,” it said and desired rightful allocations of minerals such as iron ore and coal to Public Sector Undertakings, which have been choked due to the constraint of these resources.
The committee found it quite disturbing to note the present trend of exporting minerals, particularly of iron ore. Globally though many countries have rich reserves of minerals, they procure them from others to preserve their own mineral resources for use at a later date.
“Our mineral wealth certainly cannot be frittered away for meagre sums which are to be paid as royalty to fatten the purses of a few private individuals of our companies. Hence it would be rather unwise and callous on our part to fritter away such valuable resources which we may in the future require for own industrial purposes, including defence requirements,” it said.
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Kamat to attend fedaralism meet in EthiopiaAge Correspondent
New Delhi
Dec. 9: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has nominated Union minister of state for communications and IT Gurudas Kamat to represent India at the 5th International Conference on Federalism to be held at Addis Ababa in Ethiopia from December 13 to 16. Ethiopia is hosting this conference in partnership with the Forum of Federations, Canada.
The international conferences on federalism are organised by the government of the host country in partnership with the Forum of Federations, Canada. These conferences provide a platform for practitioners and experts to share experiences on the challenges associated with operation of federal and federal-type systems. The International Conferences on Federalism were initiated in 1999 by the Forum of Federations, Canada with the conference in Mt. Tremblant, Canada. This was followed by a second conference in 2002 in St. Gallen, Switzerland, a third in Brussels, Belgium, in 2005, and a fourth in New Delhi in 2007.