The coal ministry now wants the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to change its demarcation of ?go? and ?no-go? areas, since 40 of the 219 captive blocks allotted this year come under no?go areas. Earlier, the coal ministry had successfully persuaded the MoEF to demarcate go and no-go areas for speedy forest and environment clearances.
Minister of state for coal Sriprakash Jaiswal said his ministry had, in March this year, allotted 219 coal blocks for captive use, 40 of which have fallen under no-go areas after the environment ministry demarcated go and no-go areas. The coal ministry and Coal India Ltd (CIL) together persuaded the environment ministry to demarcate go and no-go areas to ensure faster forest and environment clearances.
Earlier, CIL chairman Partha S Bhattacharyya said 89 new mining projects were being delayed due to the time taken for giving forest and environment clearances. He demanded that coal mining projects should ideally get forest and environment clearances within 90 days of application.
The environment ministry made such demarcations at the end of 2009 the but coal ministry discovered that the captive block allocations it had made in March 2010 were also within the limits of no-go areas in Orissa and Chattisgarh. Jaiswal said the 40 blocks have reserves of 600 million tonne, which makes nearly 40% of the total reserves in 219 coal blocks.