CCI to expedite coal mining on Wednesday

The Cabinet Committee on Investments is expected to take a view on Thursday on large number of coal projects pending because of delay in environment clearances.

Updated on: Feb 18, 2013, 19:47:32 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Cabinet Committee on Investments is expected to take a view on Thursday on large number of coal projects pending because of delay in environment clearances.

There are about 25 major power projects which are stuck because of lack of coal linkages and around coal mining projects worth 69.6 million tonnes of Coal India Limited are stuck because of pending environment and forestry clearances.

Number of chief ministers has also written to Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia regarding hurdles in finding coal linkage to number of power plants. The plan panel is said to have suggested a fast tracking of the clearances to ensure that the target of additional generation of one lakh megawatt of power is not jeopardized.

Government officials said that the Cabinet committee would be deliberating on measures to expedite approval for coal mining projects across India and ask the environment ministry to give simultaneous approval to thermal power plants and linked coal mines.

The environment ministry is expected to tell the committee that it has initiated the process to clear 14 coal mining projects in different parts of India, which could lead to diversion of 3,617 hectares of forestland, in the next few months.

The ministry has already issued guidelines to allow up to 25 percent expansion of coal mining projects without a fresh environment or forest clearance if that does not require diversion of additional forest land.

The ministry has also said that many of the major thermal power plants have either been cleared by the expert appraisal committee of the ministry or is at the final stage of approval. Once that is done, the so-called delay in getting approvals would be resolved, an official said.

The committee is also expected to take stock of Coal India’s failing to meet the demand of coal for power generation resulting in many companies importing coal. The ways to improve extraction of coal from domestic mines is also expected to be discussed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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