New Delhi, June 18
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal today joined hands to solve the country’s power problems.

Ramesh announced his ministry’s decision to allow coal exploitation in degraded forest lands of the country. “The Ministry of Coal will submit plans of coal field areas superimposed with digitised maps of forest cover to take a decision on ‘Go’ and ‘No-Go” areas for coal exploitation,” he said, stressing that only degraded forest lands would be considered as “Go” areas and that too after proper environment assessment while medium and dense forest lands would continue to remain strictly out of bounds.

The two ministers also agreed to continue the process to expedite clearances of coal projects to achieve a production level pf 1.7 to 2 billion tonnes by 2030.

However, it is a decision that is likely to come under fire from environmental and tribal rights groups considering that most of the coal reserves lie in precious forest areas.

Degraded forests constitute between 55 to 60 per cent of the total forest land in the country and experts feel that they will now be subject to further exploitation. Moreover, the country’s effort should be to reduce emissions while coal-based power plants will only increase carbon footprint of the country.

However, the Environment Minister says the country has to tackle the tricky challenge of producing coal while protecting forests. Emphasising the need for bridging the gap between supply and demand of coal and fulfilling the demand of power sector, Jaiswal and Ramesh stress the step was necessary to achieve a production of one billion tonnes by the next seven years. “Your fears are genuine but exaggerated,” Ramesh said when asked as to which year will be considered as cut-off date for declaring a forest area as degraded.

He said India’s forest cover, which at present was 24 per cent, will be brought up to 33 per cent in the next 10 years. “Forest land will not increase but density of forest will increase in the next 10 years”. Interestingly, the deadline for increasing the forest cover has been stretching as per convenience. Some years back, 2012 was the target.

Ramesh explained the compulsion of allowing exploration in forest land by saying that coal was the most important energy resource. “The truth is that our power plans will not materialise otherwise. It is a big challenge because all coal reserves are in forest areas. We have to look after challenges of production of one billion tonnes of coal and protect forests as well”.

The exercise will begin as soon as the distinction is made between ‘Go’ and ‘No Go’ areas by superimposing forest maps and the coal bearing map. “I am conscious of the need to increase coal production and that environmental laws and standards are to be met,” Ramesh said.