Even as the controversy over ?go? and ?no-go? areas continues, the environment ministry is looking for a fresh exercise to strictly demarcate some of the areas as no-go for coal mining.
The new formula will be presented at the second meeting of the group of ministers (GoM) looking into the matter. The ministry will strictly demarcate the areas where coal mining can’t be done and hence, companies will not have to chase the mines in such areas. The categorisation of forestland as ?go? and ?no-go? is limited to coal blocks that have implications on thermal power projects.
Earlier, the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) and the coal ministry had jointly undertaken an exercise to overlay the forest cover map on boundaries of nine coalfields in the country and identified various coal blocks as category A (no-go areas) and category B (go areas). As per the exercise, 449 coal blocks covering about 3.8 lakh hectare were categorised as category B of the total number of 602 coal blocks covering about 6.48 lakh hectare.
?The coal ministry wants go, no-go to be abandoned. We can’t compromise beyond a point. One option is that we go back to the old system or the other is to have another exercise for the no-go areas,? said environment minister Jairam Ramesh.
Ramesh’s ministry will make a presentation on the new exercise on March 25 when the GoM meets again. There are nine thermal power projects located in the ?no-go? coal mining areas which are yet to get the clearance. Of these, two are located in Singaraulli in Madhya Pradesh, four in the Hasdeo Arand coalfield in Chattisgarh and three in the North Karanpura coal fields in Jharkhand.
The present criteria used for characterising ‘A’ 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.