Corporates in Chhattisgarh to get preference

The Chhattisgarh government will give preference to corporate houses having facilities in the state while allocating mines for captive use.

“As a policy decision, the Chhattisgarh government will give preference to the corporate houses, which have industrial facility in the state but do not have mines for captive use,” Chief Minister Raman Singh said here today.

The state government, Singh added, would not emphasise on constituting joint ventures (JV) between the state-run Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC) and private players for mining and marketing the rich minerals available in the state.

“Instead of forming JV with the new corporate houses, the state government will prefer to recommend the name of the industries existing in the state that do not have captive mines,” Singh said.

For the new investors, the state government had already made a clause to recommend mines only if it set up plant in the state.

According to Singh, many small and medium industries in the state do not have captive mines.

The state government is making a cluster of such industries and recommending mines for its captive use. Recently, coal blocks were recommended for a group of 32 industries, he added.

The chief minister said that the industries operating in the state would also require raw material for its existence. “It would send a wrong signal even for the new investors coming in the state if the state government ignored the interests of the existing industries,” Singh added.