KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - India’s Forest and Environment Ministry would start an initiative to map forest regions across the country in order to identify ‘inviolate areas’ where mining would be banned.

“We are putting together all government notifications and circulars that have been issued over the years on forest and environment clearances into a single document and this along with the forest map will bring clarity and transparency to our clearance policy,” Forest and Environment Minister Jayanti Natarajan said after a meeting with independent power producers whose projects have been stalled by denial of forest and environmental clearances for captive coal mining.

Over the past 18 months, the coal and mining ministries have been at loggerheads with the Forest and Environment Ministry, with the latter demarcating forest areas into ‘go’ and ‘no go’ areas, effectively putting 300 000 ha of land out of bounds for mining.

The dispute was taken to the Office of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and an empowered group of Ministers following which the concept of ‘go’ and ‘no-go’ areas was scrapped.

“The mapping exercise would be conducted independently by the Forest and Environment Ministry. The precise classification is yet to be determined but once decided this would be inviolate,” Natarajan said.

“It would also be laid down as to what percentage of forest cover would need to be present to shut off the area for mining,” she added.

The ad hoc classification of forest areas by the Forest and Environment Ministry stalled the development of 203 coal blocks with an estimated reserve of 660-million tons, sufficient to generate 130 000 MW of power, according to the Coal Ministry.

Over 24 coal blocks allotted to thermal power generating companies have been impacted by the previous classification of ‘no go’ areas, stalling power project implementation.

“It is requested that proposals for forest and environment clearances which were rejected on above grounds and proposals pending at various levels may be further processed and sent to the Forest and Environment Ministry for clearance once again, without any delay,” the Coal Ministry said in a letter to the empowered group of ministers.

The Ministry’s exercise to map afresh the forest cover was also prompted by the report of the Chaturvedi Committee headed by B K Chaturvedi, a member of India’s Planning Commission. The report opposed the ‘go’ and ‘no go’ classifications on the grounds that the regeneration of forests after mining was a possibility in the long term while what might be lost in the short term was not.

Apart from revisiting forest classification, the Forest and Environment Ministry has also agreed to permit a 25% expansion of existing coal mining projects without the mandatory requirement of holding public hearing on forest and environmental issues.
 

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