By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI /BHUBANESWAR: The Jharkhand government moved the Supreme Court challenging coal blocks for commercial miningon the ground that the pandemic situation would not fetch market price and tribals would be devastated by commercial exploitation of coal mines.
In a writ petition filed through advocate Tapesh Kumar Singh, the state government said the auction decision was illegal as there was no law to guide mining activities because of the legal vacuum created by lapse of the Mineral Laws (Amendment) Act, 2020, on May 14.The state said before taking a decision to open the auction process, the Union government failed to do a fair assessment of adverse social and environmental impact on the huge tribal population and vast tracts of forest land in the state as well as its residents.
The state said, “The negative global investment climate prevailing due to Covid-19 is unlikely to fetch reasonable returns proportionate to the value of the scarce natural resource through the impugned auctions for commercial coal mining”.
The Centre’s decision to start the process for auctioning 41 coal blocks for commercial mining is open for domestic as well as global firms under the 100% FDI route and is aimed at making India self-reliant in the energy sector.
“If India is the fourth largest coal producer in the world, then why can’t we become the largest exporter,” PM Modi asked on Thursday and termed the decision a win-win situation for all.
Jharkhand said before taking a decision to open the auction process, the Union government failed to do a fair assessment of adverse social and environmental impact on the huge tribal population and vast tracts of forest land
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday wrote to Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on the coal blocks auction saying it is “triple disastrous” from an ecological viewpoint as several mines fall in dense forests.
In the letter to Javadekar, Ramesh, who himself was Environment Minister in the UPA government said, “I am writing to express my deep sense of shock at the manner in which coal blocks in areas of very rich biodiversity were put up for auction.”
He said the Environment Minister would have the records of “the go” and “no go” classifications of coal blocks made by a joint team of the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Coal India in 2009-10. The classification was at the suggestion of the then Chairman of Coal India that “I had accepted readily”.
Ramesh said, “Nine major coalfields had been studied and about 70 percent of the coal blocks fell in “go” areas — these could, prima facie, be considered for app(roval) but with no absolute guarantee for the approval and 30 per cent were in “no go” area — these should, under no circumstances whatsoever be even considered for mining.” He added, “I know that this 70:30 mix has been considerably diluted over the years.”
The mines on offer are largely fully explored ones meaning that they could be brought to production immediately. Moreover, more coal mines are on offer that could provide input to the steel sector. The mines are located in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha.
