Ramesh made the offer at the recent Group of Ministers meeting on environmental issues headed by finance minister Pranab Mukerjee after facing brickbats from his colleagues on promoting environment at the cost of economic growth. “MoEF is prepared to consider revised ‘go no-go' approach that frees 71% of the area in nine coalfields as opposed to original insistence of 53%. This is a huge compromise keeping in view PM's instructions," Ramesh said, in his presentation to the GoM.
Any area having crop density of more than 10% is defined as a forest. Of the 6.48 lakh hectares of forestland surveyed, 3.44 lakh was under the category of no-go areas. On PMO insistence, the area was first increased to 56% and then finally to 71% or 4.62 lakh hectares.
But, in the same presentation, he wanted the GoM to ask Coal India why it has failed to meet production targets despite having two lakh hectares, including 55,000 hectares of forestland. Read the full report here.
Source: Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times, New Delhi.
