A decade of economic reforms in India: The mining sector

The aim of this paper is to review the progress made so far in liberalizing the mining sector in India and to flag important aspects that still need attention. It is argued that successful liberalisation of the mining sector is contingent upon the liberalisation of the coal sector, which is the largest mining sector and is still being effectively controlled. Only after the liberalisation of the coal sector, larger private participation could be feasible, which in turn would reduce the cost of production and improve efficiency by introducing the state of the art technologies. The liberalisation of the coal sector is also important from the point of view of growing energy needs of India.