Only 35 of 793 coal blocks remain inviolate after dilution of policy

Inviolate forest policy repeatedly weakened; dilution began when Moily was minister and continued through NDA government

The environment ministry has brought down the number of coal blocks to be kept out of bounds for miners from 206 to a mere 35. This was done by repeatedly weakening the norms and parameters for identifying valuable and irreplaceable forests under the inviolate forest policy.

The policy, introduced during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, was meant to identify rich and valuable forests that would be irreplaceable or provided water security and other invaluable services. Miners were to be kept out of these areas even if coal or other mining ores was found buried under.

The area of the coal blocks that will now remain off-limits to miners has been brought down to a mere 944 sq km, which is 7.86 per cent of the total area of 12,006 sq km encompassing the 793 coal blocks that were repeatedly assessed by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) - the apex government agency for forest mapping - under environment ministry’s watered-down norms.

According to the initial assessment carried out by the UPA government, the total coal block area to be kept out of bounds for miners added up to 3,040 sq km - 47 per cent of the total 6,488 sq km of 602 coal blocks.

Business Standard reviewed FSI’s report submitted to the environment ministry and other internal documents showing how in a year’s time, the inviolate policy was scaled down and the results checked repeatedly by senior officials to ensure fewer coal blocks came under the scanner.

The documents show the dilution began in the last leg of the UPA government when Veerappa Moily was the environment minister and continued through the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government once environment minister Prakash Javadekar took over. The parameters to identify rich forest areas were reduced and some others softened up in consultation with the power and coal ministries to get a less onerous result. Two parameters - the hydrological value of forests and wildlife values - were dropped and others tweaked repeatedly. A series of meetings took place in the environment ministry, some of them chaired by the environment secretary.

In the report submitted in June 2014, FSI said 18.68 per cent of the total coal blocks area forming part of 55 coal blocks out of the 725 fell in inviolate zones and should not be opened for mining.

However, the ministry was not satisfied and, hence, it changed norms of the policy. Based on these diluted norms, the Forest Survey of India came back again in August 2014 to inform the area not to be mined had come down to 9.26 per cent of the total coal block area. The ministry asked FSI to yet again ‘validate’ the results.

In October 2014, the FSI came back to submit a third validated report, which said the inviolate area had yet again been reduced to 7.86 per cent of the 793 coal blocks and would now impact only 35 coal blocks in all.