Coal India Ltd feels that new green norms stipulating mandatory forest clearance before applying for environmental approval could further restrict its output in coming years.
Recently, the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) asked companies to get forest clearance before applying for environmental approval, if their mining area comprised forest land.
“It is very dangerous. There is a lot of worry on this new rule,” said Coal India chairman, Mr N.C. Jha, adding that this could further restrict the company's output in the coming years. For a mining project, on an average it takes about four to six years to obtain the forestry and environment clearances.
Earlier companies would apply for forest and environment clearance simultaneously for their projects. “Both clearances were processed on a parallel basis. However with the new rule making forest clearance as a pre-condition for environment clearance, the whole process of seeking regulatory clearances could get extended further impacting our expansion plans,” Mr Jha said.
Coal India had earlier set a production target of 663 million tonnes by 2016-17, the terminal year of the 12th Five Year Plan.
However, the company feels that it would be able to achieve an output of only 556 million tonnes by 2016-17, subject to environmental and forestry clearances, Mr Jha said.
This is after the MoEF restricted mining in some 203 coal blocks after it classified the coal bearing areas as ‘Go' and ‘No Go' areas, depending on the forest cover.
Further, the moratorium on clearing projects in the critically polluted industrial clusters based on the Comprehensive Environment Pollution Index (CEPI) did adversely impact the company's output last year.
Coal India's output for 2010-11 was flat at 431.32 million tonnes over previous year. For the current fiscal, the company has set a production target of 452 million tonnes.