Govt tightens mining licensing for KUD

The mining licensing requirements for village-level cooperatives (KUDs) in Kutai district, in East Kalimantan, will be tightened as KUDs have often been used for irresponsible third party interests, according to the head of Kutai's mining office, Hidayat.

Hidayat said on Saturday that those irresponsible people often used KUDs to get mining licenses. But after they got the licenses and mined their concessions, they often forgot their responsibilities of reclaiming their abandoned mining pits.

He noted that coal reserves in Kutai was enough to be mined for 100 years, but the priority of mining licenses would be given to large companies.

"So far there have been around 50 cooperatives presenting their proposals, but we are very careful," he said when witnessing mining activities by PT Multi Harapan Utama.

Multi Harapan manager Sudasi said coal mining in its concession areas was conducted in a simple way as coals could be found in the depth of between 1 meter to 40 meters.

Meanwhile, Hidayat noted that currently five foreign big companies were mining coal in Kutai, with production level of 7 million tons per annum, most of which had been exported to Taiwan, Japan and India. (*)