Reforms in 8 sectors in 4th tranche of economic package

On Saturday, Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sithraman launched the 4th tranche of the Rs 20 lakh crore special economic package for coal, minerals, defence production, civil aviation, power distribution in Union Territories, space and atomic energy sectors.

For the coal sector, structural reforms aimed at the introduction of commercial mining to reduce import of substitutable coal and increase self-reliance in coal production through private sector participation. It will follow revenue sharing and allow any party to bid for a coal block and sell in the open market. Further, an amount of Rs 50,000 crore will be infused for creating coal evacuation infrastructure for the mined coal.

The minister also announced the creation of an empowered group of secretaries to fast track investment clearances, ranking of states on investment attractiveness to compete for new investments, incentive schemes for the promotion of new champion sectors like Solar PV manufacturing were among those. She added that creation of an industrial information system to create a database of venues for investment by GIS mapping of industrial infrastructure including the availability of industrial land/ land bank is also on the cards.