A few steps to raise India’s coal output

Finally, the highest authorities are waking up to the urgent need to restore growth in domestic coal production.

The decision to set up a mechanism for monitoring critical activities by Pulok Chatterji, principal secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), is very correct in the context. It is important at this stage to identify the ‘critical activities’ that can unshackle growth in domestic coal production both in the near, and the longer, term.

In February last year, senior officials of the ministry of coal and Coal India Ltd went into a two-day offsite huddle to address these issues. The recorded notes of the decisions taken there were issued in due course. Monitoring follow-up actions on this will yield quick dividends.

A similar exercise was carried out in January 2007 when close monitoring by the PMO led to the all-round development of Coal India between 2008-09 and 2009-10 with growth in coal production rising from 5.2% to 6.8%.

But constraints in land acquisition and delay in clearances from the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF)continue to pose a major bottleneck.

So, measures to ensure socially and legally acceptable mitigation of environmental and social effects of coal mining deserves topmost priority.

Doubtlessly, coal mining degrades land, denudes forests and displaces people — tribals in many cases. Though post-mining land reclamation has been subjected to surveillance by satellite images in major opencast projects since 2008, there is no denying that large tracts of degraded land exist in coalfields with a long history of coal mining.

Some of these places may have leftover coal seams amenable to extraction subsequently.

But those without such mining potential must be taken up for fast-track afforestation with the participation of state forest bodies.

The progress in the implementation of such projects must be recognised and rewarded by MoEF in terms of grant of clearance for diversion of low density or open forest areas liberally and expeditiously.

For the record, coal companies have built a reasonably good track record of forestation. Some of the forests created on long stretches of overburden dumps, particularly in Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh, were classified as ‘No-Go’ areas based on satellite images!

However, the mining practice in large opencast mines generally create afforested overburden dumps on one hand with large craters on the other, which in some cases are converted into water bodies.

The best practice — to restore land to its original form to the extent possible — though deliberated quite often, is yet to be adopted as a policy measure.

Adoption of best practices in this regard must be enforced not only to make the coal companies accountable for optimal land use but also to enable them avoid seeking more land for non-mining purposes such as setting up resettlement villages, washeries etc. This approach may eventually make land acquisition and grant of MoEF clearances easier and faster.

Direct engagement with the community around the mining areas, within the frame work of the resettlement & rehabilitation (R&R) policy of the company or the concerned state, whichever is more acceptable, should be reinforced.

Such engagement, aimed at making irrevocable improvement in the quality of life, augmenting income and providing access to quality education, medical facilities, drinking water etc, with protection of identity and culture of the community, must be pursued with passion.

There are live examples in the coalfields of the success achieved by adopting such practices. These should be recognised and rewarded. The best among these should be quickly identified and adopted as a model for replication everywhere. Expenditure incurred by coal companies in developing and maintaining such model villages must be allowed set off against the liability of 26% post-tax profit payout proposed in the Mining Bill. One such example is the Rajmahal project in Godda district of Jharkhand.

Annual targets must be set in each coal project for land acquisition, land reclamation, R&R of the project-affected people. The project management must be held accountable for meeting each of these targets with equal priority as of coal production. The corporate performance should be evaluated against the aggregate of these targets besides other parameters.