In its approach paper to the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, the commission has sought a thorough review of the current approach to the environment-versus-development debate, clearly according top priority to the country's development agenda.
At the centre of the commission's critique is the 'go and no-go area' policy for coal blocks and the Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index, or CEPI, norms adopted by the environment and forests ministry.
"Part of the reason for the shortfall in coal production is the implementation of tighter environment-related regulations, and problems in rehabilitation and resettlement and land acquisition," the document notes.
The commission had originally targeted coal production at 680 million tonnes during the ongoing 11th plan (2007-12), but scaled it down to 630 million tonnes during the mid-term appraisal in 2010. The target was further lowered to 554 million tonnes. Coal output expanded at 7% a year during 2004-05 to 2009-10, but stagnated in the previous fiscal. In the past five years, demand grew at an average 8% and is expected to continue at the same rate during the next plan.
Coal projects have struggled to get environment clearances since 2009, when the ministry's no-go classification disallowed mining in 203 coal blocks. According to a coal ministry's projection, the output from those 203 blocks, estimated at 660 million tonnes annually, could have been used to generate around 1.3 lakh megawatts of power a year.
"The environment ministry had adopted the policy of 'go, no-go'a¦ This would have severely impacted the ability to expand domestic production of coal," said a commission official. "The policy had to be reviewed and now some coal blocks have been cleared. This has to be continued to ensure coal availability.''
In January 2010, the environment ministry imposed a temporary ban on development works, including some coal mining projects in Jharkhand and Chattisgarh in industry clusters identified under CEPI norms. CEPI is an index of 88 industrial clusters across India, ranked according to their impact on environment and was developed to plan developmental projects in tandem with environmental protection.
The commission said the CEPI norms had prohibited mining in areas with high pollution index even if pollution was because of some other industry. "Coal being location specific, there is clearly a need for review of this (CEPI norms) approach," the paper notes. Currently the issue is under consideration of a group of ministers headed by
The commission estimates a significant rise in reliance on imported coal as it would not be possible to meet the increased demand from domestic sources. Coal imports are expected to rise to over 200 million tonnes from the current 90 million tonnes by the end of the 12th plan.
The increase in reliance on imports not only portends a significant increase of 30% to 50% in costs for power plants, it also necessitates expensive technological upgradation as the units are not designed to take more than 10-15% of imported coal at present.
Read here the full presentation of Planning Commission on subject mater…
Planning Commission on Twelth Five year plan
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