New Delhi Even as the Prime Minister pitches for infrastructure investments, the Union environment ministry is planning to reduce the area available for mining and other infrastructure projects. Official sources told FE the ministry would soon earmark “inviolate areas” which would apply to all development and infrastructural projects, besides subsuming nine coal fields in Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, which were earlier termed “no go”areas. So the new norms will be much more prohibitive than the earlier regime.

“The go, no go classification will be subsumed in the definition of the inviolate areas. In addition, there will be 7-8 criteria defining inviolate areas, including protected area status, crop diversity, biodiversity richness and the number of species found.

New Delhi: Days after he differed with NDA partners over the choice of the presidential poll nominee, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has managed to get the Centre to double the special assistanc

Rs 300 cr to go for development of Eastern Nagaland

DIMAPUR: The Nagaland State Annual Plan outlay for 2012-13 has been fixed at Rs 2300 crores which represents a 27 per cent growth over last year’s plan outlay of Rs 1810 crore. The State plan outlay was fixed on June 26 in a meeting held at the Planning Commission between Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Chief Minister of Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio.

The Annual Plan for Bihar for 2012-13 was on Wednesday finalised at Rs. 28,000 crore at a meeting here between Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia and State Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Initiating the discussions with issues before the Planning Commission, Mr Ahluwalia said the Commission was looking to get a sense of the priorities of States so as to include them in the 12th Plan (2012-17) under formulation. He said the need for flexibility in execution of Centrally-sponsored programmes was broadly acceptable to the Commission and would be supported wherever possible.

Amidst the high voltage campaign to tom-tom Bihar’s achievements for registering an unprecedented growth rate of 13.13 per cent for the year-2011-12, there exists a dark story. Almost half of the state’s population still lives below poverty line (BPL).

According to sources in the Planning Commission, the background note, prepared by the panel for the Plan (2012-13) discussion with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday, around 48 per cent of the state’s population comes under BPL category of which 55.3 percent live in rural areas and 39.4 percent live in the urban areas.

The coal ministry has expressed urgency in setting up a regulator for the coal sector.

Environment Ministry, PCI express concern over ‘slackness’

JAMMU: Notwithstanding the fact that Jammu and Kashmir has been categorized as sensitive from climate change point of view, the State Government has remained insensitive towards preparation of State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC) and missed several deadlines set-up by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.

The Coal Ministry is preparing a draft on public-private partnership (PPP) in the form of mining, development and operations (MOD) agreement for exploration of coal mines by private entities in clo

Thomas promises way forward for stuck legislation in a fortnight discussion on with Planning Commission, others

Union food minister K V Thomas on Monday said a ‘Plan B’ was being prepared for getting the stuck Food Security Bill cleared, but would not explain what this consisted of. The Bill, to provide subsidised grain to a majority of the population, is being examined by a standing committee of Parliament. Its passage has been delayed for a long because of several differences between ministries and policy makers.

New Delhi After being held up for over four months, the government will finally approve a proposal to levy import duty on power equipment to protect the interest of domestic engineering firms such