Jamshedpur The coal ministry will soon cancel licences of those who were allotted coal blocks but haven't taken steps to begin production.
Speaking to newspersons here on Wednesday after accepting the Michael John Gold Medal jointly from Tata Steel managing director H M Nerurkar and Tata Workers
With the ministry of environment and forests expressing its willingness to walk the extra mile for expediting green clearances to stranded coal projects, the coal ministry is now keen to take the former on board for forehand clearances for 52 fresh coal blocks.
The Planning Commission has said that steps for ensuring domestic coal production for the Eleventh and Twelfth Plan period should be allowed to go unhindered.
This forms part of the recommendations of the Plan panel submitted to the Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, which is considering environmental concerns relating to coal mining and other developmental issues.
With no solution emerging out of the earlier deliberations, the group of ministers (GoM), set up by the government to sort out issues related to coal mining in No-Go areas, as classified by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), is meeting tomorrow.
This is the second meeting of the GoM after last month
India can generate 150 GW from wind, small hydro & biomass
India should look at renewable energy to meet its power needs, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said.
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week, Ramesh drew his attention to a World Bank report on renewable energy in India.
The Union coal ministry today issued a draft of the guidelines being framed for putting in place a competitive bidding regime for allocating coal blocks in the country.
Competitive bidding will replace the current practice of allocating blocks to the private sector for notified captive use based on recommendations of an inter-ministerial committee.
Fearing that mega projects on coal belts would sterile at least 20 billion tonne of the dry-fuel reserves, the coal ministry has proposed forming an experts' panel by June 30 that will suggest it how to check such a move.
