Indian coal

The report of the committee appointed by the Government of India to investigate the condition of the Indian coal industry is a thoroughly disappointing document as it fails to suggest proper and adequate remedies for improving the state of things in this important industry and bring it out of its great depression. Questions such as the scarcity of wagon supplies, the exorbitant rate of railway freights on the transportation of coal, the amount of the existing taxes on coal production and the question of providing railway sidings on collieries and similar other matters are more or less entirely shelved by the committee. And yet these are some of the very questions which must be solved before the coal trade can be rescued from the depression into which it has of late fallen on account of the government’s own shortsighted action. A perusal of the figures of India’s export trade will show that, but for some slight fall during the war, exports to foreign ports, principally Colombo, Singapore and Penang, had for years been steadily growing. In 1920-21, they touched the record figure of 1,143,000 tons, though this was a small proportion of the total colliery output. It was in these circumstances that in July 1920, the government instituted an embargo on exports, which was changed into total prohibition in January 1921. This embargo, which appears to have been originally instituted on the sole ground that it was considered necessary to reduce the pressure on railway rolling stock, is sought to be supported by the majority of the Coal Committee on the very different ground that in the opinion of the Government of India, the stock of coal was being fast depleted by exports.