Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan has quietly undone the proposal for go/no-go classification of the country?s coal-bearing areas, a key initiative of her predecessor Jairam Ramesh that drew flak from industrial users of coal, mainly large power companies.

Official sources said that at a meeting of the group of ministers here on Tuesday, the ministry ? which was virtually the only one to pitch for this new rule ? agreed to revoke it and allow green clearances for projects based on existing legal provisions. With this, the GoM?s job becomes easier, as other ministries are opposed to the norm anyway. The coal ministry too is upset over this classification, which has impeded its efforts to increase coal output and narrow the widening demand-supply gap in case of the most prominent fuel for thermal power.

A Planning Commission committee headed by member BK Chaturvedi had recommended withdrawal of the go/no-go classification.

?At today?s GoM meeting, there was a broad consensus that the existing Forest Conservation Act (FCA) is competent to handle green issues regarding coal mining,? said a government official privy to the development.

The GoM headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has the wider mandate of formulating a composite policy on environmental and developmental issues relating to coal mining and other projects. The trigger for the creation of the GoM was of course the controversy over the go/no-go norm proposed by Jairam Ramesh, who is now rural development minister.

Ramesh had designated about 30% of 4,50,000 hectare encompassing 206 coal blocks, as ?no-go? areas for mining. The coal ministry had then opposed the demarcation saying it would hamper India?s economic growth as potential production capacity of 660 million tonnes per annum falls in these areas.

? The ministry has accepted that there was no legal sanctity in the classification of go and no-go areas,? an environment ministry official said. Earlier, the MoEF had planned to introduce biodiversity indexing in the no-go areas, taking into account species of animals, insects, herbs, shrubs and reptiles which need to be preserved besides the forest cover.