Ahead of a Pranab Mukherjee-chaired group of ministers (GoM) meet on Friday, environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh has climbed down from his consistently firm and stated position by agreeing to relax the comprehensive environment pollution index (CEPI), that in turn will free up a string of 16 coal projects.
According to sources, Ramesh has agreed to increase the CEPI threshold to 75 points from 70 now. Cepi captures the various health dimensions of the environment and acts as an early warning tool to facilitate early interventions.
In a meeting with coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal last week, Ramesh is understood to have indicated his willingness to go easy on coal projects stranded due to lack of green clearances. Sources in the coal ministry said after refusing to relax CEPI, the minister was now ready to clear at least 16 grounded projects of state-owned Coal India Limited.
The MoEF had, through a notification on October 26 last year, extended the moratorium on considering projects located in critically polluted areas or industrial clusters for environmental clearance till March 31 this year. It told the coal ministry that of the 88 industrial clusters in the country, it found that 43 were having CEPI score of more than 70.
Although it lifted the moratorium for six coal fields, other coal bearing areas could not be considered for mining. ?Ramesh expressed his ministry’s intention on not extending the moratorium vis-a-vis CEPI beyond March 31. As of now, we expect the MoEF has assured us of clearing at least 12 projects of CIL stranded due to the CEPI impasse. The MoEF is now working to clear the mines falling in No Go areas in Talcher and Ib Valley coalfields,? source said.
Interestingly, all mines being discussed by both the ministers pertain to CIL and not those of any private company. At the behest of CIL, the coal ministry told the MoEF that according to an exercise carried out by Coal India along with experts, the CEPI score for Korba has emerged to be 83 while the Index in the nearby Gevra area was 23, which pointed out that pollutants from other industries in Korba town have contributed to this high score. In a supplementary note to the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure earlier, the coal ministry has suggested that the process of acceptance of Terms of Reference and environment clearance of all coal projects in seven coalfields having CEPI score of more than 70 should be continued without waiting for SPCB’s action plans.