KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - Environmental norms are losing out in the persistent tussle between mining and environment departments within the Indian government.
The latest 'green' proposal to be scuttled by one the county's specially constituted Group of Ministers (GoM) was the Environment and Forest Ministry’s push to introduce inviolate mining areas, where no mining activity of any kind would be permitted in certain geographies selected on basis of pre-determined environmental parameters.
The GoM, headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, rejected the inviolate mining areas proposal on the grounds that the parameters used for selecting the inviolate areas were too restrictive and unjustifiable against the backdrop of increasing mineral demand in the country, particularly coal for the energy sector.
According to officials in the Environment Ministry, the GoM further noted that the scientific basis of the parameters for determining inviolate areas had not been conclusively settled and it argued that wider consultations among environmental scientists were necessary before the the proposed parameters could be considered to be sacrosanct.
The Indian government last week also issued a notification declaring that mining projects would not have to reapply for environmental clearances when they renewed mining lease for ongoing projects.
In cases in which a project did not change as envisaged in the original environmental clearance, a new environmental clearance would be automatically granted when the mining lease was renewed, the notification said.
In yet another relaxation of green norms, the Indian government declared that existing coal mining projects which planned to expand capacity by 25% or less would not have to undertake the mandatory environmental-impact public hearing as a precondition to seeking environmental clearances.
The dilution of the norm was in response to representations made by number of government and private mining companies, which were considered by Cabinet's newly formed Committee for Investments (CCI) to kick-start delayed large industrial projects in the country. The CCI is headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and held its first meeting in February last year.
Over the past two months, the CCI, the apex clearing body for mega projects, had cleared total investments to the tune of $13.53-billion in oil, coal and infrastructure sectors, overriding the pending mandatory approvals process, including those of the Ministry of Forests and Environment, according to government data.