Committee to look into needs of scientific organisations

Visakhapatnam, May 12 (UNI) The Union Minister of State for Mines T Subbarami Reddy today inaugurated the Geological Survey of India (GSI) office-cum-laboratory building of Operations Eastcoast-ll-Marine Wing, Samudrika in the city.

Speaking after inaugurating the GSI building here, he said a high-level committee and a centre panel to look into the scientific needs would soon be formed to assess the requirements of the scientific organisations. The committee would comprise the home, finance, mines and other ministries under the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

''We have no dearth of minerals, but we could have done better.

We could not make the optimum use of it due to lack of the latest equipment'', he said.

Lauding the employees' dedicated services, he said the revenue obtained through GSI this year was Rs 1,700 crore. ''We have plans to take it to Rs 3,000 crore by the next financial year'', he added.

Mr Reddy said the status of the mineral deposits in the State stand at 2,00,000 crore units of Bauxite, 2,20,0000 crore units of Coal. ''However, we are not able to utilise even 5 per cent of it.

The Ministry is all set to extend any aid and co-operation to the organisation to increase its efficiency and performance,'' he said while promising to procure the latest equipment required.

''We must emulate countries like Australia, Canada and South Africa in utilising the mineral deposits'', he added.

UNI