The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has been accused of allocating over 1.86 lakh hectares of forest land for mining without the consent of gram sabhas as has been made mandatory under the Forest Rights Act.

In all, 1,82,389 hectares of forest land was diverted by the environment ministry between January 2008 and August 2011. The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) headed by T. Chatterjee, secretary of MoEF, has recommended diversion of four additional projects located in prime forest land in 2012. This includes 151,762 hectares for the Lara Super Thermal Power Plant in the Raigarh district of Chattisgarh and 766,393 hectares of forest land for the Talaipall Coal Mining Project in the Raigarh and Dharmajaigarh forest divisions of Chattisgarh.