Mixed response to Ramesh's 'go no-go'

The Planning Commission has delivered a mix bag for environment minister Jairam Ramesh on his proactive policy to protest environment and forests from ill-effects of coal mining. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Mar 10, 2011, 23:51:22 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Planning Commission has delivered a mix bag for environment minister Jairam Ramesh on his proactive policy to protest environment and forests from ill-effects of coal mining.

However, it served a stinker to the coal ministry on its afforestation record once the mines are closed.

The plan panel in its draft cabinet note, which will be considered by a Group of Ministers (GoM) on environmental issues later this month, says the shortfall in coal production because of environment ministry's 'go no-go' policy can be met by private developers, if the environment clearance is fast tracked.

The environment ministry has categorised 35% of forestland based on density of trees as no go for coal mining, which would have resulted in shortfall of about 40 million tonnes per year by the end of 11th plan in 2011-12.

"The areas, which have dense forests, should normally be excluded from mining and fully protected. If they fall within a coal block, these should be separately identified, so marked and protected. The mining should be continued only in rest of the area of the block," the panel said in the note.

The panel, however, advocated underground mining in dense forest areas, to which Ramesh has agreed.

In areas with poor quality of forests, the panel said, mining should be allowed without any delay and environment ministry's compensatory afforestation policy should apply.

Expressing unhappiness on compensatory afforestation in mining areas, the panel has recommended to the GoM that the environment and coal ministries should set up a joint mechanism for review of its progress.

The panel has, however, supported the commerce ministry's opposition to Ramesh's Comprehensive Environment Pollution Index (CEPI), which had resulted in moratorium on allowing new industries in 43 industrial clusters saying the policy will have detrimental effect on overall energy needs.

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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