Govt reviews ease of doing biz with coal controller's organisation

The government on Thursday reviewed ease of doing business and environmental sustainability aspects and appreciated decentralisation of approval process of mining plan and mine closure plan.

A meeting to review the coal controller's organisation was held under the chairmanship of Coal Secretary Anil Kumar Jain recently, in which senior-level officials of the Ministry of Coal and the coal controller's organisation were present.

"The secretary reviewed ease of doing business and environmental sustainability aspects, and appreciated decentralisation of approval process of mining plan, and mine closure plan and gave direction to similar action in respect of pricing of coal having GCV less than 2,200 kcal/kg and closure of the suspended coal mines in an environmentally sustainable manner," coal ministry said in a statement.

In a move to ease the process of approval of the mining plan, the coal ministry has re-engineered and simplified the mining plan preparation and approval process of the mining plan and revised the guidelines in May last year.

The modified guideline is oriented towards downsizing the volume of documents required and easier to shift on online mode. The power to approve mining plans was decentralised and was delegated to the coal controller's organisation.

As part of the dispute redressal mechanism, a system of appellate has also been introduced for optimum satisfaction of the coal block allocates. The block allocates whose mining plan is rejected may appeal to the coal secretary for reconsideration.

As part of ease of doing business and early operationalisation of coal blocks, a single-window clearance portal has been launched in January this year.

In the absence of a unified platform for grant of clearances/ approvals for starting of a coal mine, the project proponents were required to approach different administrative ministries and government departments separately to apply for the requisite clearances leading to delay in the operationalisation of coal mines.

The coal controller's organisation has started processing and communication of approval to the allocate through the portal, and the portal has been linked with the Parivesh portal of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

Under the current mechanism, coal having a gross calorific value (GCV) of more than 2,200 kcal per kg is priced. Coal of GCV less than 2,200 kcal per kg is considered as ungraded or reject.

"Rule 27 of Solid Waste Management Rule 2016 provides for the extraction of energy from the solid waste having calorific value of more than 1,500 kcal per kg," it said.

In line with the Rule, the coal secretary directed that the energy must be extracted in an environment-friendly manner from such low GCV coal also and till the price of coal for GCV is less than 2,200 kcal per kg is not fixed, the price of 10 per cent below the G-17 grade coal price should be realised from the consumers.

The secretary has further directed to evolve an institutional mechanism to monitor the actions by coal companies to close all the suspended mines in an environmentally sustainable manner.