Poor maintainance of safety zones around mining lease area:

Poor reclamation of mined areas and poor maintainence of safety zone around mining lease area were some of the deficiencies found in around 696 mining projects inspected by government in the last three years to assess compliance to conditions stipulated in forest clearances, the Lok Sabha was told today.
In a written reply in the House, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said non-compliance to stipulated conditions have been brought to the notice of state governments for taking appropriate action.
"During the last three years, a total of 696 mining projects in forest areas were inspected by the regional offices to assess compliance to conditions stipulated in the forest clearance," Javadekar said.

He said the deficiencies observed were poor reclamation of the mined area, non-declaraton of non-forest area identified for compensatory afforestation as reserved or protected forests and poor maintainence of safety zone around the mining lease area.
He said the other-non compliance observed were poor demarcation of mining lease area on the ground by using four- feet high reinforced cement/concrete pillars and overburden dumps not properly reclaimed.
He said the regional offices of the MoEF and Climate Change regularly monitors the status of compliance to conditions stipulated in the approvals accorded under Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 and the Environment Protection Act 1986 to ensure conditions stipulated in the approvals are comlpied with.

Replying to another question on whether the government has classfied forest lands into go and no-go areas, Javadekar said that after a study of major coalfields, it was decided that unfragmented forest landscapes having gross forest cover (GFC) more than 30 per cent and wieght forest cover (WFC) of more than 10 percent will be no-go areas.

He said similarly fragmented landscapes having GFC less than 30 per cent and WFC less than 10 per cent will be go -areas.
He said a GoM constituted by the cabinet secretariat to consider environmental and developmental issues relating to coal mining decided that the concept of go-no-go for coal mining should be "done away" with and each proposal seeking diversion of forest land for coal mining should be processed and considered by MoEF.

"Accordingly, the MoEF had on August 30 2012 informed the state governments that they may process proposals seeking prior approval of central government under Forest Conservation Act 1980 for diversion of forest land for coal mining projects in accordance with the said decision and send proposals to MoEF," he said.