Melbourne : Australia’s Queensland government on Thursday said that it has listed Indian mining giant Adani’s 21.7 billion dollar coal mine project as critical infrastructure to facilitate it even as it underlined that the state’s taxpayer money would not go towards funding the controversy-hit project to build one of the world’s largest coal mines.
“The states taxpayer money would not go towards funding of the project and in order to facilitate the project, the state government had worked through the approval processes and recently listed it as critical infrastructure,” said Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
Palaszczuk said she will meet Gautam Adani, Chairman of Adani Group, along with senior representatives of company next week regarding the project.
Speaking at the state parliament, the Premier said state government was working constructively with Adani Group on its mine, rail link and port project and that the project was projected to generate thousands of direct construction and operations jobs and many thousand more indirectly.
“Adani has already made a significant commitment to these projects – 3.3 billion dollar in fact. This investment to date is part of their commitment to a long term future with Queensland, and not only with coal,” she said. She also welcomed the Indian energy giant’s announcement for building 200 million dollars solar energy plant in Moranbah.
“I welcome the recent announcement for a 200 million dollars solar energy project for Moranbah, and revealed its broader plans to generate 1500 megawatts of solar power in Australia within five years,” she said and added the project was to pass through over 200 condition applied to it. –PTI
