CSE: Forest land being constantly diverted
India is diverting forest land which is the equivalent of one large tiger reserve the size of Panna every year.
During the Eleventh Five Year Plan, 8,734 projects were granted forest clearance with two lakh hectares of forest land being diverted for “developmental” purposes. From this, 34 per cent of forest land (67,167 hectares) was diverted for mining and coal projects.
These were some of the harsh facts marshalled by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) as it hit out at the ministry of finance’s proposal to set up a National Investment Board. Sunita Narain, director general of CSE, reeled of statistics in the five key sectors of thermal power, hydropower, cement, iron and steel and mining to show that the scale of clearances in all these sectors during the Eleventh Five Year Plan have been “unprecedented.” “119 coal mining projects were accorded forest clearance diverting 31,500 hectares of forest land, 184 coal mining projects, 276 thermal power plants with a 2.2 lakh MW capacity, 203 steel plants with 132 million tones per annum capacity and 112 cements plants with 202 million tonne capacity got environmental clearance,” said Ms Narain. “These clearances which should have resulted in the doubling of capacity in almost all these sectors but the bulk of this capacity remains unutilised,’ said Ms Narain. The ministry of environment and forests has given clearance to 192 coal mines for the same period but none of these have been operationalised. “Coal India Ltd is sitting on reserves of 64 billion tones of coal but it produces only 435 million tonnes of coal annually. The question is why then are they asking for more clearances?’ asked Ms Narain.
Post new comment