Palamu BJP MP VD Ram pleads for optimum use of DMFF  (district mineral foundation fund) to enhance drinking water facility, health care, anti pollution measures, education, welfare of women and children, energy facility etc in areas where coal mining is done and there is the deficiency of these things for the people there.

Ram said, “If commercial mining of the non coking coal starts then the shape and volume of this important DMFF will be too enormous and bulky which will help change the living condition of the people in the coal mining areas.”

Palamu district mining officer Manoj Toppo said, “We have 29 crores of rupees with our DMFF and this figure is on June 27.”

Taking a cue from this V D Ram said this fund is set to increase multi fold once the commercial mining of non coking coal is done.

 8 coal blocks of Jharkhand’s 6 districts are on auction anvil for commercial mining and this has led to a war of words between the central Government and this State Government, each side putting forth things diametrically opposite to each other.

Government of India has put on auction 41 coal blocks across the country where Jharkhand and its two nearest neighbour Chhatisgarh and Odisha also figure.

Ram said there is a strong need to tell people that commercial mining of non coking coal is too beneficial and also to scotch fears and misgivings.

He said it is being aired that Coal India Limited (CIL) will be orphaned of coal deposits to which he said with all confidence that “ CIL has nothing to do with commercial mining. All its 436 coal blocks will remain intact and untouched. So where is the question of CIL getting bereft of its coal deposits.

 I am told CIL is in a position to feed the country's thermal sectors with coal for another 100 years.”

He said the countrymen must be told that for import of coal every year the country is to spend 1,50,000 crores in foreign exchange but if commercial mining of coal blocks is done this foreign exchange can be saved and put to people’s works here.

Ram said India is the fourth largest coal producing country in the world but despite this India imports coal. “ Should it not be reversed so that India becomes a coal exporter?” quipped the MP.

He said commercial mining of coal will mean three things – capital, investment and newer techniques and all three will have a cumulative effect on the socio economic development of the country.