The law ministry has asked the energy ministry to amend the present "Mines and Minerals Rules Act-1968" before adopting the coal policy as it is contradictory to the proposed draft coal policy."The energy ministry can recommend to the law ministry for enacting a new law in this regard and send it to the advisory council along with the proposed coal policy. However, the energy ministry will decide what they will do but this change is a must for the sake of justice", a joint secretary from law ministry said at an inter-ministerial meeting yesterday.The law ministry's representative told the first inter-ministerial meeting on draft coal policy that some points in the draft are 'contradictory' to the present rules under which the mining sector is being governed now. So the energy ministry should recommend to the law ministry to reform those law first or make new law in this regard. Otherwise, it would not work, meeting sources said. The energy ministry held the interministrial secretary-level meeting yesterday. M. Mohsin, secretary, energy ministry presided over the meeting. Representatives from environment, land, agriculture, power ministries and NBR were present.Although the government committee on draft policy has already suggested the energy ministry to amend some laws and rules in this regard but some crucial parts of the draft coal policy including royalty, mode of awarding coal field, mining method, foreign investment policy remain unresolved. Law ministry's official said that according to the mine and minerals rules the royalty is fixed and it is awarded on the basis of "first come first serve." But the draft says that royalty would be decided by a committee and coal field should be awarded through tendering process which is contradictory, law ministry official told the meeting. "The present government policy has encouraged the privatisation and foreign investment policy. But the draft is virtually narrowing the path of foreign investment as well as privatisation", meeting sources told The Independent quoting law ministry official.Meeting sources further said none of the representatives submitted any observation on the policy in writing rather they raised some issues which have already been elaborately discussed."Yes it is law ministry's observation, the environment ministry has also raised some issues which we discussed. Whatever the observation we get from them we will send those along with the coal policy to the advisory council", M. Mohsin, secretary, energy ministry, told The Independent.The energy ministry has finalised the coal policy recommending formation of "Khoni-Bangla", a management body to oversee the country's mineral resources including coal, hardrock, lime stone, silica sand, etc. It is alsolearnt that the energy ministry has finalised the policy without making major changes in the draft policy prepared by country's renowned experts and following the secretary-level meeting it will be sent to Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed along with the committee's observation, for approval.The committee did not say anything about the coal extraction method. The issue should be specially on coal field. It may be mentioned that the committee suggested to the government to examine the pros and cons of open-pit mining and that the government should go for open pit on a limited scale. The policy has not mentioned anything about it.It is learnt that the energy ministry in the draft policy suggested the land reclamation issue be kept under government's jurisdiction. However, the committee suggested to give the land to its owner. The country has a known reserve of 2.7 billion metric tons of coal but there is no specific policy on coal development, although there are some rules and regulations to lease out coalfields to foreign companies.
Source: The Independent
Date: 27/06/08
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