“Will the rains stop? Will the bear and the birds flee when the trees are cut?" said Marpachi, 44, who lives in a forest-hugging village in the central state of Chhattisgarh. “But then, we also hear this coal will run big factories, and our homes will no longer be poor and starved for electricity."
Marpachi's concerns echo a larger debate in India as environmental awareness and the nation's appetite for energy rise. The tussle between the two forces is a sign of the kind of tightrope act the government faces as it tries to guide this emerging economy through a key moment of its transition.
As a power crisis looms, both sides have focused on coal, the source of about 70 percent of India's power supply. This year, environmental groups applauded the Environment and Forests Ministry when it declared 203 coal fields off-limits because they are in heavily forested areas. But many officials opposed the decision, saying India desperately needs energy to fuel its industrial growth.
Now businesses fear a coal shortage. India hoped to produce 660 million tons of coal this year, but officials say it is likely to fall short of that target by 139 million tons because of new regulations and delays in granting licenses, which include pollution controls. Dozens of power plants under construction across India, amounting to more than $22 billion in investment, will sit idle next year because of the coal shortage, officials say.
“Never before have we had such a high demand for coal," said Sriprakash Jaiswal, India's coal minister. “And never before has our environmental consciousness been so high either. Both are legitimate worries. But the solution is not to clamp down on coal production."
Jaiswal tried to break the impasse by promising an aggressive reforestation campaign in the coal fields after they are mined. But at a meeting last month, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan said that even less-dense forests have high ecological importance and need to be protected. Read the full report here.
Source: by Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post, Madanpur, India.
