The clearance granted to start mining overruled the recommendations by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), which had recommended the three blocks, Tara, Parsa East and Kante Basan, as `no-go' areas for mining as the blocks were located in the Hasdeo-Arand forest, large parts of which were part of an elephant conservation programme.
All three coal blocks were linked to proposed ultra-mega-power-plant projects, denoting plants with per unit capacity of 800 MW and higher, to be located in Chattisgarh and neighboring Rajasthan province.
“FAC's brief is to look into forest-related issues and while FAC has done its due diligence, as a Minister, I have necessarily to keep the broad development picture in mind and balance out different objectives and considerations," Forest and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said.
“On three earlier occasions I had concurred with recommendations of the FAC and rejected mining proposals. However I now disagree with the final recommendation of the FAC for six reasons and decided to give the first stage clearance to start mining in these blocks," Ramesh said. Read the full report here.
Source: by Ajoy K Das, Mining Weekly.com, Kolkata.
