The coal ministry has requested the Prime Minister’s Office to define the criteria for mining in forest areas in consultation with concerned ministries and Planning Commission to help double production to over 1,000 million tonne by 2020.
The request comes in the face of environment ministry’s restrictions on mining in forest land, which coal ministry feels are excessive and prohibitive. The communication from the coal ministry was sent just two days before FM Pranab Mukherjee asked environment minister Jairam Ramesh to be more lenient and and work together with the coal ministry to find a solution to the issue. “Before the sub-clustering approach was adopted for ‘A’ category, there was resultant reduction in production capacity to the tune of about 660 MTPA. After adopting sub-clustering approach on which environment ministry has given its consent, the loss of production is estimated to be about 500 MTPA. This position is not at all satisfactory for meeting the demand for coal. It appears we will have to revisit the criteria. It is being suggested that since it is going to be a nationally adopted criteria on forest cover, all concerned ministries and Plan panel should be consulted in fixing the criteria,” a senior coal ministry official said in a letter to the PMO.
No comments:
Post a Comment