Coal 1, Environment 0: Govt Opens Coal Mining Sector To Attract Investments And Reduce Imports

The union government approved the promulgation of Mineral Laws (Amendment) Ordinance 2020, which would boost FDI in mining and remove end user restrictions, in a bid to open up the coal mining sector to attract global bidders.

The Amendment will pave the way for the first phase of coal auction during the current fiscal and will help private companies do commercial mining of coal other than those in steel and power sectors.

The Ordinance, which will amend the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, and Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015, would do away with the requirement of previous approval in cases where allocation of blocks was made by the Centre.

The move is expected to increase competition and reduce coal imports and may also end the monopoly of state-run Coal India Ltd (CIL).

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Coal and Mines minister Prahlad Joshi said the move would speed up the process of implementation of projects, ease of doing business, simplification of procedure and benefit all the parties in areas where minerals are located.

The move has been hailed by the industry players.

Commitment to renewables

However, a key concern here is that the amendment comes at a time when India has committed to source 40 per cent of its energy demand from renewables by 2030.

India¡¯s renewable energy ambition is backed by strong domestic actions. India is almost halfway toward to meeting its target of 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022.

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At the Climate Action Summit in New York in September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ambitious plan for India¡¯s climate actions, including a massive scale-up of renewable energy.

As Prime Minister Modi said, ¡°the scale of global action required to combat climate change is still lacking¡­We need a comprehensive approach to include values, lifestyles, and development priorities to combat climate change.¡± He added that India has come with a strong roadmap and is taking concrete steps domestically.

India is the third largest greenhouse gases (GHG) emitter, but its per capita emissions are only at a third of the global average.

Clearing of forests

The government¡¯s move to open up Talabira forest in Odisha¡¯s Sambhalpur district is already under fire. So far, 40,000 trees have been cut in the month of December, most of which are decades old. However, the officials claim the number of trees cut is 17,000.

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The vast expanse of forest has been mowed down to make way for a coal mining project, steered by central government-owned NLC (Neyveli Lignite Corporation Limited).

The company is reported to invest more than Rs 17,000 crore to produce 20 million tonnes of coal per year from the Talabira coal blocks to power 4,200 MW of its thermal power projects.

A forest in Chhattisgarh, the size of Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi combined, is set to be lost forever. The government in 2019 gave nod to a coal mining project in India¡¯s last stretch of unbroken forest ¨C Hasdeo Arand in Chhattisgarh, which is nothing short of an ecological nightmare.

Over the past few years, forests and vast green patched have been opened up by the government for mining projects. Even as the government claims it is set to meet renewable commitments and that India¡¯s forest cover has actually increased over the years, the move to open more land to mining is going to hamper efforts in the direction of conservation.