With the 10% stake they put on offer, they hoped to generate 150 billion Rupees' worth of demand - enough to go some way towards keeping the fiscal deficit within its target for the year. The IPO closed on the 21st October 15 times oversubscribed, having generated over seven times that. It had generated more cash than the Government could have possibly hoped for.
But behind the cheers of the Coal Ministry is another, quieter sound. It's roar of hacksaws and the crashing of trees, the thrum of diverse forest life settling into silence. It's the sound of the cost of this success and of the quiet death of a valiant attempt to balance economic development with ecological sustenance.
Rewind to March 2010. Coal India Ltd, mindful of how attractive it might look to potential investors, was searching to reduce the amount of time it took to get environmental clearance for its mining applications. Together with the coal ministry, the company approached the Ministry of Environment and Forests and proffered nine forest zones in India under which they had coal reserves. Assess them, the coal bodies offered, and tell us which areas we can mine in and which we can't. The idea was that the assessment could basically give the go-ahead for mining in certain areas, so slicing out the time and money spent applying for unlikely mining approvals. Read the full report here.
Source: by Grace Boyle, The Independent, UK.
