“I fully empathise with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to save foreign exchange in this time of crisis and uncertainty,” he said in a post on X.
“One way to do this is to consume less. The other way is to produce more. PM’s pain points are oil and gold, India’s two biggest imports, more than 30 per cent of the total. If you add other resources from below the ground, it becomes 50 per cent,” Agarwal said.
“Given our geology and our existing assets, we can massively increase production quickly. It has happened in the past. Two things are required: privatisation and self-certification in clearances,” he said.
Overall, in the below-the-ground sector, there were 24 PSUs which could be privatised and would result in manifold increase in production, Agarwal said.
Completing the privatisation of companies such as HZL (the government holds 26 per cent) and BALCO (the government holds 49 per cent) would also result in much more output and jobs, he said.
“When Vedanta acquired HZL in 2002, India was import-dependent for zinc. Today, we are self-reliant. With exactly the same assets. We did R&D and started producing silver and lead, which no one had imagined. And now we are in the process of doing R&D to produce rare earths,” Agarwal said.
“In aluminium, output was 1 lakh tonnes, and now we are in the process of producing 60 lakh tonnes,” he said.
“I am 100 per cent confident that India can produce enough resources domestically with existing assets (new assets take longer) to mostly take away imports,” Agarwal said.
“Government should trust the private sector to entirely eliminate any vulnerability on account of imports of oil, gold, silver, copper, fertiliser and many other resources. We will deliver for India,” he said.
Also read: Modi reiterates call to reduce petrol consumption, other measures
Puri says PM’s Call is to prevent fiscal strain
