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The Cabinet has decided to set up a Group of Ministers (GoM) to frame guidelines for coal mining in restricted forest areas or ‘no-go' areas.
The Environment Ministry had last year classified those areas with over 30 per cent of gross forest cover as no-go areas for coal mining. The Environment Ministry's refusal to grant permission for mining in such forest areas is seen as impacting the country's coal output, thereby resulting in a widening demand-supply gap.
The Coal Minister, Mr Sri Prakash Jaiswal, said on Thursday that the Prime Minister has agreed to set up a GoM on the issue as coal is critical to meet the country's growing power demand.
“There are about 203 coal blocks in the restricted forest areas. If permission is granted, we can produce about 660 million tonnes of coal every year, which can help generate 1,30,000 MW of power,” Mr Jaiswal said.
Coal bearing areas account for 0.54 per cent of the country's land mass and 0.16 per cent of the forest areas. “Except for the 10 per cent of the ‘no-go' areas that has dense forest cover, mining should be allowed in the remaining areas after taking an undertaking from companies that they will afforest the mined out area,” Mr Jaiswal said.
Stating that there should be a pragmatic approach towards the issue of environmental clearance, Mr Jaiswal said if the issue is not sorted out at the earliest, the shortfall in demand-supply would shoot to about 200 million tonnes in 2013-14. For fiscal 2012 the projected output is about 630 million tonnes while the demand is estimated at 713 million tonnes, thereby resulting in a shortfall of 83 million tonnes. Production at state-owned Coal India, the largest coal producer, for the current year is likely to stay flat when compared to previous year's output of 431 million tonnes, he said.
Further, Mr Jaiswal said that Coal India would explore possibilities of a joint venture with South African firm Sasol for bringing in the coal-to-liquid (CTL) and coal gasification technology to India. The Minister, who visited the Sasol plant in South Africa recently, said one or two blocks will be identified very soon where the CTL project will in be initiated in a time bound manner.
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