Govt to sort out environmental issues in time-bound manner

The government today said all vexed environmental issues hurting infrastructure and mining sectors would be sorted out in a time-bound manner.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee while presenting the Budget said a Group of Ministers (GoMs) would suggest changes in existing statutes, rules, regulations, guidelines and make its recommendations in a time-bound manner for reconciliation of environmental issues related to infrastructure and mining.

The GoM, headed by the Finance Minister himself, has been set up to suggest ways of the necessary changes in existing environmental rules and asked to finalise its recommendations within two months.

The Coal Ministry and Ministry of Environment and Forest have been at the loggerheads over various issues after the latter last year classified 203 coal blocks under 'no go' area, impacting 660 million tonne coal production in a year.

In the first meeting of the GoM, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had assured he would be "positive" towards infrastructure projects.

As per the Economic Survey, both the coal production and the progress of the country's beleaguered infrastructure sector have been badly hampered due to environmental issues. While more than half of ongoing infrastructure projects are running behind schedule, coal production are hampered to a large extent, forcing bulk consumers to rely on imports.

"The lower growth in production during the current year is primarily due to environmental restrictions, particularly, application of the comprehensive environment pollution index (CEPI)," the survey said, adding there was an urgent need to streamline land acquisition and environment clearance for infrastructure projects.

The widening demand-supply gap in coal is set to touch 142 million tonne next fiscal from 82 million tonne estimated this fiscal, mainly because of the classification of 203 coal blocks by environment ministry as "no-go" zones.

Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, Home Minister P Chidambaram, Mines Minister Dinsha Patel and Commerce Minister Anand Sharma among others are the members of the ministerial panel.