In what promises to be good news for the Indian Mining community the Coal Minister Shriprakash Jaiswal and Environment minister Jairam Ramesh almost managed to reach a compromise on Tuesday.
The two ministries have been at logger heads following a ban on mining in forested areas imposed by the environment ministry in 2010.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh intervened with a proposal of constituting a Group of Minister to sort out the controversial “go” and “no go” coal block zones. The 12 member Group of Ministers led by Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee will sort out the environmental clearance issues.
The Prime Minister has asked the two ministers to resolve the issues by revisiting the “no go” mining policy and amending it appropriately. The officers from both the ministries were present as a resolution to the matter was worked out.
The Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had placed 17 coal mining zones which had 35% forest area into no go zones for mining. The 203 zones that got affected by this have the potential of producing 660 million tonnes of coal annually. A large quantity indeed for the energy starved world.
After the intervention of the Prime Minister the coal mining in no go areas of Eastern Coal Fields and in Mahanadhi area of Orissa have been allowed to resume by the environment minister. There is also a proposal to bring down no go zones to include just 10 % forest cover areas.