Mining companies to get 82,540 hectares of no-go zone

After getting nearly 30,000 hectares (ha) of forest land from the ‘no mining’ zone, mining and power companies can look forward to another 82,540 ha from the ‘no-go’ zone identified by the ministry of environment and forests.

The move would mark a complete climbdown for Jairam Ramesh, the environment minister, as the extra declassification would take the total mineable forest area to 4.62 lakh ha — higher than even the coal ministry’s own demand of 4.5 lakh ha.

The tussle, which saw the intervention of the prime minister, the finance minister and the power minister, started at the beginning of the year when the coal ministry approached the environment ministry seeking its opinion on how much of India’s seven big coalfields are ‘mineable’, after considering their forest cover.

The environment ministry, after an extensive study, ruled that out of the total 6.48 lakh ha, only 3.49 lakh had even a chance of getting environment clearance for mining as the remaining deposits had sensitive forests above them. Ramesh, in other words, wanted 3 lakh ha of prime coalfields under a ‘no go’ embargo for miners, raising protests from both coal ministry and mining, power and steel companies.

In July, under intense pressure from many ministries, including the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Ramesh announced that
he and the coal ministry have reached a compromise to increase the mineable area from 3.49 to 3.8 lakh ha.

“It is a compromise.. This is something we can live with,” Ramesh had said at the time, pointing out that the 3.8 lakh ha allotted was far less that 4.5 lakh (70%) demanded by the coal ministry.

However, according to Ramesh’s latest statement, he is likely to concede considerably more areas to the ‘mineable’ zone — if they are not under thick forests.

“The ministry of coal may appropriately modify some coal block boundaries, having potential for such modification (involving 82,540 ha area) spread over eight coalfields, which may ultimately result in addition of some areas (to the mineable zone),” he told the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

The addition, he pointed out, is being made possible by the breaking up of huge coal blocks into smaller ones by separating forested and non-forested areas within the same block. The non-forested areas can then be ‘freed up’ to be added to the mineable zone.

The move is likely to be significant to India’s coal mining prospects as the initial proposal of keeping nearly half of the eight coalfields under forest would have cut down India’s total coal production by an equal measure, according to the coal ministry.

The fields stretch from Maharashtra in the west to Orissa in
the east.

Instead of reaching 1,000 million tonnes per year in 10 years, coal production will reach only around 400 million if half of the areas are kept under a ‘no-go’ zone, according to a recent letter by coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal.

In comparison, Jaiswal had pointed out, India’s demand was expected to reach 1,500 million tonnes per year in a decade.
India depends on coal for generating nearly 75-80% of its power, but has one of the largest deposits of low-grade coal in the world. However, 40% of the coal deposits are estimated to be under forest cover.

No rethink on Hasdeo-Arand: Significantly, Ramesh also said he had not rethought the ban on mining in the Hasdeo-Arand coalfield in Chhattisgarh.

The field, which has 20 coal blocks and around 5 billion tonnes of coal, is a huge bone of contention between the warring ministries since they have been allocated to many private companies.