Orissa mineral use vision plan draft in April

Society of Geoscientists and Allied Technologists (SGAT), a professional body dedicated to promotion of mineral development activities in the country, will submit the vision mineral development plan 2020 for Orissa in April this year.

SGAT, entrusted with the responsibility of drafting a vision plan for the development of mineral sector of the state, has already made a presentation about the vision document to the officials of the state government.

It is in the process of finalising the document, sources said. While SGAT has collected data from all the stakeholders, the final round of discussion with them will be held before finalising the vision plan.

“We have already made a presentation to the state government and received some inputs. The vision plan is being finalised and will be presented to the government next month”, R C Mohanty, president, SGAT told Business Standard. The vision document is expected to make comprehensive recommendations for the overall development of the mineral sector of the state.

The recommendations of SGAT will cover 10 broad areas like value addition of minerals, sustainable development of mines, mineral technology, corporate social responsibility, infrastructure development, research and development (R&D) activities, new exploration and legal changes required for the development of the mineral sector of the state.

Similarly, the recommendations will also include organisational restructuring required in Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC), Directorate of Geology (DoG) and Directorate of Mines (DoM) which are associated with different facets of the mining activities in the state.

Besides, the upgradation of the skills of the manpower of the government owned organisations and development of the internal expertise are likely to figure in the final set of recommendations. According to B K Mohanty, advisor, SGAT, there is necessity for expeditious disposal of the applications for mining leases (ML) and renewal of ML. The recommendations will focus on measures to make the process faster.

With about 10,000 applications pending for consideration of issue of prospecting license (PL) or mining lease (ML), there is acute need to make the disposal process faster, he added. The process of drafting a vision document started in September 2008 and sectoral working groups were formed which included members from government and non-government agencies.

The draft report based on the reports of the working groups was prepared and will be finalised after discussion with the stakeholders. SGAT prepared a blue print for the mineral sector development of the state in 1997 for a period of 12 years. It proposed the state government to draft a new vision document for the mineral sector and the government had agreed to the proposal.