Mines Department is with the Union Coal Minister in the process of reviewing sluggish progress made in as many as four coal blocks falling under the scheduled-II category in Jharkhand.
Top sources in the Department told The Pioneer that a meeting of the concerned officials from the Centre and the State along with various departments involved here took place to discuss the progress made about Pachhwara Central, Pachwara North, Parbatpur Central and Tokisud North.
“All the parties involved discussed the lacunas coming in the way of making the four mines functional. Deadline set by the Centre in this regard has got over long ago,” said Mines Commissioner Aboobacker Siddique on Monday.
He, elaborating further, said that since some of the mines in question involve other State Governments, so their officials also participated in the meeting. “There are issues related to land and forest clearances. All the concerned Departments have been told to work in a concerted manner to resolve the hurdles,” he said.
Pachhwara Central has been allocated to Punjab State Power Corp ltd while Pachwara North is with West Bengal Power Development Corp. ltd. Parbatpur Central was given to Steel Authority of India limited and Tokisud North to Essar Power MP limited after the mines were auctioned on the orders of the Supreme Court.
The apex court had cancelled 204 coal mines forming the schedule-II mines, 42 nationally including four in Jharkhand, which were already producing the mineral and were ready to produce following the auction. However, despite the decision coming in 2015 the four coal blocks of the State are in doldrums.
In some cases the State Government has been at fault in not submitting the application for grant of mining lease before the Ministry while others are pending due to Forest Clearance -I and Environmental Clearances from MoEF. Issues in obtaining ground water clearance, finalisation of boundary coordinates, submission of revised mining plan and involvement of forest areas were on the agenda.