Nirmala Sithraman said the 4th tranche of the Rs 20 lakh crore special economic package announced on Saturday will focus on structural reforms in eight sectors to make India self-reliant and unlock the true potential of the economy.
Sitharaman said the sectors to be affected include coal, minerals, defence production, civil aviation, power distribution in Union Territories, space and atomic energy.
Sitharaman said the reforms were being guided by the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is committed to the principles of Reform and Perform.
In the coal sector, the minister said structural reforms were being introduced for the introduction of commercial mining to reduce import of substitutable coal and increase self-reliance in coal production. This will be done through competition, transparency and private sector participation. It will follow revenue sharing instead of the existing fixed-rate model. The move will allow any party to bid for a coal block and sell in the open market as against the existing practice of only allowing firms with captive consumers the right to bid for coal blocks. Nearly 50 blocks will be offered immediately under this programme.
She also announced Rs 50,000 crore is to be infused for creating coal evacuation infrastructure for the mined coal.
Sitharaman also listed some past policy reforms to fast track investments which she said were linked to the reform measures being announced on Saturday.
Formation 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 said 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 in the pipeline and will have an impact on attracting future potential investors. 3,376 such industrial parks/estates/SEZs in 5 lakh hectares had already been mapped on Industrial Information System (IIS).