Granite industry should adopt new technologies: Minister

Bangalore, Feb 9 (UNI) To tide over the stiff global competition, the Indian granite industry should adopt new technologies, be quality-oriented and achieve cost competitiveness, Minister of State for Mining T Subbarami Reddy said today.

Speaking at the valedictory function of the All India Granite and Stone Association's 'Stona-2008' exposition here, he said there was a need to step up the extraction of granite, marble and sandstone as the industry had huge potential to grow.

''The country is exploiting just five per cent of its mineral wealth, mainly the iron ore. We should increase this at least to 20 per cent. The government was committed to bring in a uniform policy in mining, do away with outdated rules and red tapism.

Royalty need to be uniform all over the country,'' he said.

The granite industry had achieved Rs 4,000 crore of exports last year but it had a potential to grow bigger. ''India's production of 120 MT of marble and 690 million cubic metre of granite is small compared to the rich deposits available,'' he added.

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