With a push to make India a manufacturing powerhouse, metal and mining industries will play a dominant role and will soon become a double-digit contributor to the Indian GDP, says Shantanu Banerjee, Country Head, HAZEMAG allmineral India Pvt Ltd.

How can the system of incentivising early production aid the growth of the mining sector?
This policy is a great step to facilitate quicker turnaround for production of minerals and will provide mining houses an opportunity to make healthy returns on their investments. As long as this initiative is implemented with provisions for counter penalty clauses binding the timeline, it will strengthen the mining sector.

What are some of the other steps necessary to make the domestic mining industry more competitive and to lift exports?
The Indian mining industry is dominated by PSUs, where productivity and higher costs of production have been the two key challenges. Policies focused towards partnering with OEMs and modernisation of mines by bringing in appropriate technology will improve productivity significantly, thereby causing downward pressure on price and increasing competitiveness in international mineral markets. Opening up of commercial coal mining will increase production, thus giving increased opportunity for more exports, besides helping PSUs to be more competitive with the prices.

Are the reforms announced by the government in line to address these concerns? Certainly, the reforms announced are a great first step; however, to make the industry cost competitive and self sustainable, the government needs to re-evaluate its current policies on procurement. Modernisation of mines will require a paradigm shift away from the traditional purchasing methodology of L1 and look at wider participation from domestic and international technology suppliers.

What are the emerging technology trends in mining?
New technologies are emerging across different mining departments. Semi mobile coal crushers across the range of 300 to 2,000 TPH have been one of the many advancements in the area of coal crushing. Additionally, introduction of roller screens at the pre-crushing stage has been another emerging technology which has shown a significant increase in the net throughput.

What are some of the mining equipment you plan to introduce this year?
2021 is going to be an eventful year for HAZEMAG allmineral India in Indian crushing, screening and beneficiation segment. We plan to introduce some of our globally successful sizers, impactors and chain feeders to the India market. We are also working very closely with high productivity mines for high-capacity single-stage coal crushers in the capacity range of 1,000-1,200 TPH. In addition, we plan to introduce our state-of-theart pneumatic flotation machine to beneficiate the costly coking coal fines, which in most of the PSU coking coal washeries goes untreated, for use in the steel industry and reduce our foreign exchange burden on import.

What is the role of the metal and mining sector in making India self reliant?
The metal and mining sectors are fundamental to the Indian economy. With a push to make India a manufacturing powerhouse, these industries will play a dominant role and will soon become a double-digit contributor to the Indian GDP.