Where are the trees in reclaimed areas, envt min asks coal miners

No green cover was found in around half of the 211 square kilometres — about one-fifth of Delhi’s area — where Coal India claims to have planted trees, forcing the environment ministry to seek an explanation from the country’s biggest coal miner.

Updated on: Jul 13, 2015, 24:31:16 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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No green cover was found in around half of the 211 square kilometres — about one-fifth of Delhi’s area — where Coal India claims to have planted trees, forcing the environment ministry to seek an explanation from the country’s biggest coal miner.

The Centre for Science and Environment, in its flagship state of environment report 2014, reported that compensatory afforestation was poor in many states. (Indranil Bhoumik/Mint file Photo)

Companies have to provide funds to plant trees, depending on the quality of forests cut down, for projects known as compensatory afforestation.

A 2014 Comptroller and Auditor General’s report had found that of the 1,03,390 hectares where trees were to be planted since 2002, the environment ministry had records of actual afforestation only for 7% of the land. The CAG report was based on records of ministry and state forest departments.

The Centre for Science and Environment, in its flagship state of environment report 2014, said compensatory afforestation was poor in many states with seven — Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Punjab and Rajasthan — not having planted any trees in lieu of cutting down forests. Only Assam and Odisha showed high level of afforestation.

To gauge the exact situation of afforestation in India, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) had asked companies, including Coal India, to report on the afforestation status. In response, Coal India had, at the last FAC meeting, reported how it had converted excavated coal mines since 2008 into green zones and claimed it monitored biological reclamation through an Indian Space Research Organisation satellite that provides “enhanced multispectral and spatial coverage” for 211 sq kms of the closed mines. “This was 43% of the total excavated area,” Coal India reported.

However, an official source said in at least 50% of the area where Coal India claimed to have planted trees, no green cover was visible through Google Earth. “It was a barren coal mining area,” the official said. “We have asked for each Coal India company and other mining companies to furnish complete details of reclamation done,” an official said.

The ministry has decided that every mining company will have to make a presentation on its compensatory afforestation and reclamation to the FAC with officials stating it would provide a “real picture” of the afforestation status.

This is important as the ministry does not have records on “actual afforestation” done by companies through state governments. Most of the money provided for compensatory afforestation has remained unutilised under the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) fund, a bill for which has been introduced in Parliament.

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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