South Kalimantan Governor confused over huge number of coal licenses

South Kalimantan Governor Sjahriel Darham is puzzled with the huge number of coal mining licenses already issued by local regencies since the latter obtained autonomy in managing their respective economic affairs, the local Banjarmasin Post daily reported Friday.

The increasing number of coal mining licenses had created difficulties for the Governor to design anti illegal mining policy, the paper said

The Governor also criticized regencies for easily issuing licenses without the proper stages, pointing out that certain local administrations could issue between 50-100 licenses for coal exploitation without without requiring the coal firms to undergo an exploration stage first.

This is just one example of problems arising from the introduction of the country?s new autonomy law, which gives power to local administration to manage their economic affairs and natural resources.

The central government is planning to revise the autonomy law amid concern of excessive implementation of the autonomy policy.(*)