It’s no-go for Ramesh in cabinet

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh may find himself isolated on go and no-go areas for coal mining, with the coal ministry getting overwhelming support for its proposal to restrict no-go areas to 10% of forestland. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Nov 18, 2010, 01:22:30 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Environment minister Jairam Ramesh may find himself isolated on go and no-go areas for coal mining, with the coal ministry getting overwhelming support for its proposal to restrict no-go areas to 10% of forestland.

At least six central ministries, which submitted comments on the coal ministry’s note for the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure, had termed Ramesh’s stand unjustified and an impediment to economic growth.

The environment ministry has given six reasons why the coal ministry’s proposal is not a good idea. It said accepting the proposal would have an adverse impact on forests and wildlife, ignoring the classification could result in judicial intervention, and would go against the spirit of forest conservation law open floodgates for similar requests from other ministries.

The coal ministry hit back saying diverting only 00.75% of India’s total forestland cannot jeopardise the country’s intricate bio-diversity, ecological and watershed characteristics.

“Coal seams are contiguous to existing operational areas and segregation is not practical,” the coal ministry responded.

The coal ministry also said that the average pendency period for getting forestry clearances range from three to six years though the statutory requirement is 150 days. It includes a large number of coal blocks, which are in go-areas as per the environment ministry’s classification.

The environment ministry, however, said any delay is because of submission of required documents and as many as 223 projects of Coal India have been approved.

The Planning Commission, from where Ramesh had expected support, believes the coal ministry is right.

“In case there are concerns on wildlife and forestry, necessary stipulations about providing protection and investments in forestry may be made while granting approvals,” the panel said, stressing a better monitoring mechanism to ensure environment management plans are implemented.

Among various ministries supporting coal, the steel ministry has given most the vehement support, saying that the steel sector had to import 24 million tonnes of coking coal as against 16.84 million tonnes domestic production.

The power ministry, whose electricity generation target depends on coal extraction, has termed Ramesh’s classification as illegal, saying it will adversely impact power generation capacity of 130,000 MW, which depends on coal.

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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