Environment ministry orders altering boundaries of 28 coal blocks

The coal ministry is to redraw the boundaries of 28 coal blocks, as per a strategy being worked out jointly by the ministries of environment & forests and coal to minimise the impact of the “no go” policy on coal production in the country.

The move is estimated to bring down the net impact on coal production by 34%. “After the clustering and boundary modification exercise, the net impact on coal production will come down to 435 million tonne per annum (mtpa) as against the initially assessed impact of 660 mtpa,” says a coal ministry presentation to the group of ministers headed by Pranab Mukherjee.

Of the 602 coal mines in nine major coalfields in the country, around 203 coal mines with reserves of over 660 million tonne have been barred from any mining activity.

Several meetings have been held between the ministries of environment & forest, coal, power and the Prime Minister’s Office to resolve this issue, following which the coal ministry has been asked to redraw the boundaries of some coal blocks to get mining permission.

The coal ministry has agreed to undertake the boundary modification of the indicated blocks, which will result in the coal mines under the “go” category (where mining can be done) going up to 71% of the total mining area in the nine coalfields.
Coal India, which currently has 89 coal mines in the “no go” list, is expected to see the count come down to 55 post boundary modification, helping it boost production to 694 mtpa from the 512 mtpa estimated earlier.

According to the new mining plan, in the captive mines category, the number of coal mines where mining activity could be undertaken would increase to 215 mines from the earlier estimated 187. This will result in 468 mtpa of coal production from captive mines as against previous estimates of 425 mtpa.