India finance minister Arun Jaitley was quoted by Bloomberg as saying that the government has approved an ordinance which allows commercial mining in the coming years.
The ordinance also allows to auction licenses to private-sector companies for captive use only.
Jaitley was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as saying: "The issue needed to be discussed expeditiously as power, steel and cement companies were going to suffer due to non-availability of coal mines."
He added that the state-run companies will be offered licenses by the government in the next three to four months.
The commercial coal mining in the country has been under the control of state-run mining agencies, including Coal India and Singareni Collieries.
The latest development will mark an end to the four-decade long government monopoly on coal mining.
Business Standard quoted Jaitley as saying: "Rules will be framed for commercial mining, under which the government could also decide commercial miners.
"We want optimal utilisation of resources and reduction in the amount of imports."
