New Delhi | Feb 25, 2016:
A Parliamentary panel has said it fails to understand the basis of state-owned CIL setting an ambitious production target when a large number of coal mining projects of the PSU were facing problems.
Coal India (CIL) is eyeing one billion tonnes of output target by 2020. "While work related to geographical reports and subsequent project reports for exploration and mining in 110 blocks out of the 119 assigned to CIL, has been progressing albeit slowly, there still remains the hurdle of environmental and forest clearance for a large number of the same which allows drilling of requisite number of boreholes in the forest areas of the coal blocks," Committee on Public Enterprises said in a report.
Coal Ministry had in 2012 alloted 116 coal blocks to CIL. In addition three deallocated coal mines, Brahmini, Chichro Pastimal and East of Damogoria, were also assigned to the PSU.
"The Committee find that in spite of an online system for submission of forest applications initiated in April 2014, only two blocks, so far, have been granted permission to proceed with detailed drilling of boreholes, out of the 72 applications sent so far," it said.
It further said only a limited number of domestic agencies were available for drilling work and that international agencies were not responding to the global tenders for drilling.
"The Committee desire to know the the specific reasons for this scenario. Also under such circumstances, the committee fail to comprehend the basis of CIL fixing ambitious production targets," it said.
Asserting that the Prime Minister Office PMO has been approached to break the logjam with Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), the panel said that it expects the matter to proceed in a favourable direction.
"MoEF must be urged to process the pending clearances for drilling in a strict time-bound manner. Overall the committee desire to be apprised of further progress made in this regard, particularly, after simplification of procedures for according forest clearance to exploration proposals and urge the ministry of coal to continue vigorous efforts so as to enable CIL to gain the requisite forest clearances," it said.
(Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/)