Coal projects, which had been awaiting environmental clearances for a period ranging from three to six years - as several of them were situated in densely forested areas and were being cleared since 2011 on a case to case basis - have all of a sudden been put on the fast track and within 10 days time not less than four of its stuck projects have been okayed by the new Minister for Environment and Forest, M Veerappa Moily.
Not only this, the Green Ministry has even amended the guidelines (through a circular dated January 7, 2014) for granting environmental clearances for expansion of coal mining projects involving one time production capacity expansion of up to 25 per cent. It has increased one time capacity expansion for projects by up to 50 per cent or incremental production of up to 1 million tonnes per annum in existing coal mining projects.
This amendment according to sources, was underken by the ministry on the request of the Coal Ministry, and the move is expected to add around 40 million tonnes per annum to Coal India ltd’s (CIl) production capacity for the current fiscal.
In addition to all this, the projects have also been exempted from the public hearing clause (otherwise as per the norms, any project which seeks to secure additional land for expansion, needs to undergo a public hearing exercise involving the local population whose land is to be acquired for the purpose).
This, sources said would expedite capacity expansion for CIl projects, as public hearing takes a lot of time.
True to his promise of clearing all the pending matters in the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) within a month, M Veerappa Moily, who was given additional charge of the coveted ministry on December 23, 2013, has managed to clear projects worth more than Rs 1 lakh crore, including the South Korean giant Posco’s much delayed Odisha steel plant.
According to information available with The Pioneer, between January 3 and January 15, 2014, four CIl projects including three of mines expansion were cleared by the MOEF.
These projects include CIl subsidiary Central Coalfields ltd’s (CCl) Kathara open cast mine’s expansion. It had been awaiting the environmental clearance since December 31, 2008 and was granted the go ahead by Moily on January 8, 2014.
Western Coalfields’ Chhinda mine expansion, which had been awaiting environmental clearance since July 15, 2011, got it on January 15, 2014. Another Western Coalfield ltd project, the development of Bhakra underground mine, which was pending since March 20, 2009, was cleared by Moily on January 3 this year.
Similarly Western Coalfield’s yet another expansion project, that of Ukni deep-opencast mine, which was lying in cold storage since October 28, 2010, awaiting environmental clearance, was granted one by the MOEF on January 15, 2014.
The speed with which Moily has been granting clearance to all pending projects belonging to all the sectors, is likely to be a boon for CIl, which suffered production gaps owing to the strict (and now redundant) ‘Go’ and ‘No-Go’ regime which was put in place during Jairam Ramesh’s tenure as the minister in Paryavaran Bhavan.
Moily in fact has installed a ‘clearance mela’ kind of a set-up in place in MOEF and on a daily basis, corporates whose projects had been awaiting clearances since ages, can be seen queueing up to seek clearances.
This alacrity being shown by the new minister along with the aforementioned amended guidelines for environmental clearances, are likely to have a positive impact on CIl’s production figures even in the coming fiscal.