Ramesh abandons policy on coal mining

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh washed his hands of the Go-No-Go policy over coal mining terming it a proposal of the coal ministry, which sought its scrapping at a group of ministers (GoM) meeting on Thursday. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 18, 2011, 24:32:55 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Environment minister Jairam Ramesh washed his hands of the Go-No-Go policy over coal mining terming it a proposal of the coal ministry, which sought its scrapping at a group of ministers (GoM) meeting on Thursday.

His offer to increase go areas for coal mining to 74% did not cut much ice with his cabinet colleagues, who sought fast tracking of environment clearance for infrastructure projects and abolition of the policy.

Before the GoM, Ramesh took a dig at his critics. While inaugurating a green crematorium concept, he said: “Many must wanting me to be the first one to be cremated here.” At the meeting, he blamed state governments for slow pace of clearance saying of the 55 coal projects pending, 53 were with state governments.

“They (state governments) say their forests and water is taken and in return they get pollution. But coal is taken away by the Cente. Unless there is incentive, fast tracking environment clearances will be difficult,” he told the GoM.

The environment minister also said that Coal India Limited should maximise its production in 1,45,000 hectares of non-forestland, instead of harping on clearances in the 55,000 hectares of forests.

The meeting starting with finance minister Pranab Mukerjee making it clear that the group will not be a substitute for executive functions of the environment ministry or re-write environmental laws. Coal minister Shriprakash Jaiswal made a presentation asking the GoM to do away with go-no-go classification of forests for coal mining. In the cabinet note, on which the GoM was constituted, Jaiswal had demanded increase in ‘go’ areas to 90% .

The demand to scrap the go-no-go policy apparently happened after the law ministry terming the classification as legally ‘untenable’ and the Planning Commission describing it ‘unscientific’.

Jaiswal also sought a direction to the environment ministry to ensure that forest clearance is issued within stipulated time limit of 150 days, in place of current average of three to six years. He also wanted coal mines to be kept out of the purview of critically polluted industrial clusters.

Home minister P Chidambaram insisted that a price will have to paid for persuing the goal of achieving 9% economic growth. Ramesh was asked to make a presentation before the GoM on March 15.

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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