Coal India Limited has warned that coal reserves in the country may turn non-mineable if the tardy system of green clearances continues. The state-run behemoth today expressed serious concern that the country may face paucity of 1,000 Million Tonne of coal within the next five years if the government did not address its production constraints. Talking to The Indian Express CIL Chairman Nirmal Chandra Jha said his company has not gained much with the dismantling of go,no-go system as imposed by the Union environment ministry. While doing away with the system,the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has reverted back to the earlier mechanism of scrutinising individual projects and assessing its merits. Actually,this is quite disturbing as we cant take off on fresh projects. We have about 178 projects awaiting green clearances which amounts to denying us 200 MT of coal production per year. More worrying is that our production growth has come to a virtually standstill in 2011-12 as against 8 per cent (growth) in 2008-09. Someone will have to realise it, Jha reasoned. If 200 MT of coal a year is blocked it amounts to 1,000 MT in the 12th Plan period. Although the MoEF has agreed to discard the no-go system,it has also imposed a host of conditionalities making coal production an intensely difficult exercise. Now,with passing time,new things are coming up like ensuring compliance to the Forest Rights Act. We are also being told that before our projects are considered we must furnish data compiled from the Differential GPS (DGPS). CIL is also being told to consider annuity for our project-affected populace. We are known for our CSR activities,then why this new directive? Jha argued. Referring to another directive of the MoEF,Jha said it has mandated CIL to secure Forestry Clearances (FC) before being considered for Environment Clearances (EC). This has made functioning difficult in new coal mines which have little vegetation and simultaneous processing of the entire exercise is a time consuming affair. Frankly,almost the entire coal reserves have gone for a toss. Because earlier we used to secure Environment Clearances,begin mining the area and apply for Forestry Clearances,but now it has been reversed. The losses incurred by us during the period in which no-go system was in vogue would take lot of time to recover. It has to be appreciated that we want to give ample coal,but we need to be facilitated, the CIL Chairman said.
