The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) may have passed on the onus of clearing projects in the no-go areas to the group of ministers (GoM) and the Cabinet, but it is clearly in no mood to let go off the issue.
To make the diversion more stringent, the ministry now plans to introduce biodiversity indexing for the no-go areas. As part of this, the ministry will also consider species of animals, insects, herbs, shrubs and reptiles which need to be preserved besides the forest cover.
Due to this, nine thermal power projects located in the no-go coal mining areas which are yet to get the green nod, may face more hurdles.
Of these, two are located in Singaraulli in Madhya Pradesh, four in the Hasdeo Arand coalfield in Chhattisgarh and three in the North Karanpura coalfields in Jharkhand.
Till now, only the forest cover was considered while distinguishing the no-go areas from the go areas but biodiversity indexing will look at rare species of animals, insects, herbs, shrubs and reptiles which need to be preserved.
The present criteria used for characterising ?A? (no-go) and ?B? is based on the gross forest cover (GFC) and weighted forest cover (WFC). Under GFC, the forest is defined as crop having density more than 10% and anything below this is scrub, which is not included in the forest cover. Any proposed coal block having 30% or more area under forest cover is placed under non-available category or category ?A? or no-go. On the other hand, WFC gives appropriate weightage to different qualities of forest. For instance, a weightage of 0.85 is given to very dense forests, 0.55 to moderately dense forests and 0.25 to open forests in a coal block for calculating forest cover percentage over the whole block. The cut-off for this parameter was kept at 10% implying that if a block has WFC of more than 10%, it is in category A or no-go.
Though the ministry, led by Jayanthi Natarajan, is yet to make a final proposal or take a decision on this issue, officials say that elements such as soil quality and wildlife corridors which used to be left out, will now be given due importance.
?Besides the canopy cover, now we also need to look at the biodiversity in the areas. There are many areas with elephant corridors that need to be protected,? said a senior MoEF official.
Incidentally, previous environment minister Jairam Ramesh had said that there was an increasing pressure on elephant habitats as increased mining activity in central India, especially in states such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, posed a threat to the elephants.
In fact, to revisit the existing guidelines for exploratory coal mining in forest areas, the ministry had taken up three pilot sites in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh to ascertain the impact of such exploration activities on the local flora and fauna.
Similarly, top soil regeneration is another point where the ministry is not keen on letting mining happen in ?strict? no-go areas. With indexing, the MoEF will prioritise what all flora and fauna needs to be conserved.
?Indexing was not done scientifically till now and only large fauna, mammals and trees were considered while many small species of flora and fauna were left out. This new index will help us in preserving the rare species,? the official added.
