(a) whether the Government has demarcated `Go and No Go Zones`
for coal projects in the country;
(b) if so, the details thereof alongwith the criteria adopted
in this regard;
(c) whether the Planning Commission has urged for a careful delimitation
of areas in the country in view of overall development perspective;
(d) if so, the details thereof; and
(e) the remedial steps taken/being taken by the Government
in this regard?
MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) FOR ENVIRONMENT AND FORESTS
(SHRI JAIRAM RAMESH)
(a) & (b) The Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) and the Ministry
of Coal (MoC) had jointly undertaken an exercise to overlay the forest cover
map on the coal blocks boundaries in respect of 9 coalfields in the country
and identified various coal blocks as category ‘A’ (No-Go areas) and Category
‘B’ (Go areas). As per the exercise, 449 coal blocks covering about 3,80,000 ha
have been categorised as category ‘B’ out of total number of 602 coal blocks
covering about 6,48,750 ha.
The criteria used for characterizing ‘A’ and ‘B’ has been based on following
parameters:
(i) Gross Forest Cover (GFC) – under this category, the forest is defined as
crop having density more than 10%. Anything below this is scrub, which is not
included in the forest cover. Any proposed coal block having 30% or more area
under forest cover is placed under non-available category, i.e., category
‘A’ or ‘No-Go’.
(ii) Weighted Forest Cover (WFC) – to give appropriate weightage to different
qualities of forest, a weightage of 0.85 was given to very dense forests,
0.55 to moderately dense forests and 0.25 to open forests in a coal block
for calculating forest cover percentage over the whole block. The cut off
for this parameter has been kept as 10%, i.e., if a block has WFC of more
10%, it is in category ‘A’ or ‘No-Go’.
(c) to (e) The Member (Energy), Planning Commission, while reviewing
the Policy Guidelines for allotment of alternative coal block to captive
allottees, suggested that the issues of ‘Go - No Go’ areas need to be settled
quickly. The entire issue of ‘Go - No Go’ is before a Group of Ministers (GoM),
constituted by the Cabinet Secretariat on 03.02.2011, to consider the
environmental and developmental issues relating to coal mining and other
developmental projects.