PM makes Ramesh to increase go area for coal to 71 %

Following an intervention by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, environment minister Jairam Ramesh has agreed to free 71% of the forestland in nine coalfields as against 53 % envisaged earlier. In return, he wants the coal sector to improve its environment report card.

Updated on: Apr 28, 2011, 20:52:28 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Following an intervention by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, environment minister Jairam Ramesh has agreed to free 71% of the forestland in nine coalfields as against 53 % envisaged earlier. In return, he wants the coal sector to improve its environment report card.

Ramesh made the offer at the recent Group of Ministers meeting on environmental issues headed by finance minister Pranab Mukerjee after facing brickbats from his colleagues on promoting environment at the cost of economic growth.

“MoEF is prepared to consider revised “go no go” approach that frees 71% of the area in nine coalfields as opposed to original insistence of 53%. This is a huge compromise keeping in view PM’s instructions,” Ramesh said, in his presentation to the GoM.

Any area having crop density of more than 10% is defined as a forest. Of the 6.48 lakh hectares of forestland surveyed, 3.44 lakh was under the category of no go areas. On PMO insistence, the area was first increased to 56% and then finally to 71% or 4.62 lakh hectares.

But, in the same presentation, he wanted the GoM to ask Coal India Limited why it has failed to meet production targets despite having two lakh hectares of land, including 55,000 hectares of forestland, in its possession.

The minister also challenged the coal mining strategy by saying it was harsh on ecology and demonstrated some facts to showcase his claim. “One-third of coal mines are running with one type of violation or other and irrespective of whether environmental and forestry clearance are available or not,” he said.

On behalf of the state governments, Ramesh said no land has been returned back to any state government despite being in Coal India’s possession for 45 years. There is no systematic time-bound reclamation plan of mined out areas.

“As a result, forest given to coal companies is lost for ever. Plantations are no substitute for natural forests,” he said. As much as one million hectares of forestland has been lost because of projects approved in the forest areas.

For the slow pace of forestry clearance for coal projects, Ramesh has blamed Coal India by saying that it has very poor record in relief and rehabilitation of people affected by mining and its poor compliance of meeting the provisions of the Forest Rights Act for getting forestry clearance.

The ministry, on its part, has given approval for maximum production capacity to avoid periodic approvals and Coal India has been allowed to carry out compensatory afforestation in open, degraded forestland in Jharkhand.

The GoM is likely to take a call on environmental issues in the coal sector at its next meeting slated after results of assembly elections in five states are announced on May 13.

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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