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Alpha coal, rail projects in Queensland worth 10 bn Australian dollars comes as Oz declares end of its resources boom

GVK Power and Infrastructure won environmental approval for its A$10 billion Alpha coal and rail project in Australia's Queensland state on Thursday, with 19 conditions to protect the environment. The approval came as Australia declared the end of the resources boom that cushioned the country from the global financial crisis, a day after the world's biggest miner, BHP Billito shelved two major expansion plans worth at least $40 billion.

New Delhi Problems with land acquisition and environmental clearances have delayed 58 ongoing national highways projects, including 18 in Assam, seven in Jammu and Kashmir and five each in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, said the ministry of road transport and highways in response to a written question.

The projects which are facing delay due to land issues are in Rajasthan (4) and two each in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, it said.

High cost, dull market and strict green norms add to mining industry's woes

Slow growth pace in the mining sector is hurting mineral processing units in Gujarat. At least 500 small and medium mineral processing units have curtailed their operations by half over the past three months and some more are likely to follow suit as high cost of operations and dull market conditions add to industry woes.

MoEF team skips meeting people at project site

The Odisha government has decided to review the status of the Posco steel project towards the end of this week, even as an expert team of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) visited the proposed plant site on Tuesday. “We will review all mega steel investment projects on August 25 including the Posco plant. We have acquired all litigation free land in the area and will discuss about acquiring more land from disputed site,” said Rajnikant Singh, minister of state for steel and mines.

Chandigarh: With the Punjab and Haryana High Court banning sand mining in 241 quarries of less than five hectares across the state, the prices of minor minerals have rocketed.

A panel of the Union environment ministry has recommended re-validation of the green clearance accorded to South Korean steel giant Posco by five more years till 2017.

A four-member expert team constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) is scheduled to visit the proposed Posco steel plant site near Paradip on Tuesday.

The team was formed by MoEF in line with the order of the National Green Tribunal which had suspended the environmental clearance of the project in March this year and wanted an expert team to visit the site to assess the impact of the project on the environment afresh.

New Delhi In an attempt to increase monitoring of mining projects and make miners accountable for mining activities, the environment ministry has agreed to the mines ministry’s proposal of a Sustainable Development Framework (SDF) which will comprise guidelines for reporting initiatives and restoration conditions for mining. The SDF needs to be submitted to regulators at the time of seeking clearance or renewal or extension.

However, the ministry has stated that the framework is only a tool for leaseholders to comply with disclosure mechanisms and not a substitute for environment clearance.

New Delhi: Private road contractors will now be held responsible for the quality of roads they build.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests has accorded the much-awaited environment clearance to a group of mid-scale projects of Tata Steel at its upcoming industrial park at Gopalpur in south Odisha.

The projects include a 55,000-tonne per annum (TPA) high carbon ferrochrome plant, a 400,000-TPA rebar mill and a desalination plant to meet the water requirement of the industrial park.

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