Mining projects in go areas need green nod

The Environment Ministry has said that its clearance will have to be taken for mining projects in certain areas. The ministry has said that the exercise to identify go and no-go areas of the coal-bearing land was only indicative in nature and was not legally enforceable. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Sep 7, 2010, 24:26:03 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Environment Ministry has said that its clearance will have to be taken for mining projects in certain areas. The ministry has said that the exercise to identify go and no-go areas of the coal-bearing land was only indicative in nature and was not legally enforceable.

Replying to Power Ministry's proposal for three coal blocks — Meenakshi, Meenakshi B and Dip Side of Meenakshi, a ministry official said: "In this connection I am further directed to inform that identification of Category A (go) and category B (no-go) areas for coal blocks in the country has only indicative value and has no legal enforcement."

The ministry official in a communication to the Power Minister also said the exercise of categorisation Category A and B areas is in no way substitute to the statutory powers conferred to the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) under the Forest Conservation (FC) Act 1980. For every project in forestland, approval of FAC is mandatory.

"The provisions under the Act do not provide freedom to communicate the acceptance of any forest land for use of non-forestry purposes without passing through the statutory process," the official argued.

This has put a big question mark on the Environment Ministry's move to demarcate go and no-go areas, which if implemented could imply an outright loss of 600 million tonnes of coal production annually.

The Power Ministry had requested the Environment Ministry to consider enlisting the coal earmarked for the Orissa Ultra Mega Power Project in the go area. As per the joint exercise carried out by the Environment and Coal ministries, Meenakshi A was in the go area, Meenakshi B in no -go area while the third one was on the borderline.

The view of the ministry has settled the question that the categorisation is just indicative and does not mean automatic clearance for mining projects in go areas.

It can result in more trouble for Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, who has opposed the categorisation.

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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