Hope Veerappa Moily is able to clear all the pending environmental issues that Jayanti Natarajan has left as her legacy

Petroleum minister Veerappa Moily has taken over the additional responsibility of being the Minister of Environment & Forests (MoEF), a job from which Jayanti Natarajan simply walked away to serve the party!

It would appear that delayed environmental approvals may have really cost her the job, in as much as the Project Management Group, initiated by the Prime Minister's Office, holds MoEF as the primary cause for not having fuel supply agreements (FSAs) for over two years, and 22% of the power projects have been affected as a result! Full details are likely to come out in the next few weeks.

It may be recalled that, recently, in a press statement, Narasing Rao, CMD of Coal India (CIL) has lamented on the various problems faced by the company with some of the coalfields not being able to get on with the work as mining could not be started due to various clearances not being available!

In the meantime, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) gave clearance for coal supply to nine more power projects, including GMR and Sterlite Industries, who had failed to develop mines allocated to them due to environmental and other clearance issues. Now, they will be able to get coal supplies for three years on tapering linkage policy! But the question is, whether Coal India will be able to take this additional responsibility to supply, when they are already failing to reach their target of 482 million tonnes (mt) this fiscal?

According to Narasing Rao, due to delays in forest and environmental clearances and hurdles in evacuation, they have had to hold back about 20 million tonnes of coal production this year. They have ambitious plans, all set to meet the FSAs that they have signed, from 482 mt to 530 mt (in 2014-15), 575 mt (in 2015-16) and 615 mt (in 2016-17).

In fact, the Coal India CMD has cited an example of regulatory clearance in case of one mine, where they had obtained Stage-I approval on 15^th March this year; ideally, Stage-II clearance would have facilitated CIL to go ahead and have the mine in operation in 90 days from that date of the green signal. Yet, nine months after the Stage I clearance, CIL is yet to receive the final approval for mining operation to commence!

Perhaps, the new minister, Veerappa Moily, can take immediate notice of such cases and organise clearances on a war footing?

Signing of FSAs has truly no meaning if the goods cannot be delivered for reasons beyond the control of the mine operator!

Veerappa Moily had taken on a big responsibility in this additional assignment. We can wish him luck and hope he is able to clear all the pending environmental issues that Jayanti Natarajan has left as her legacy!

(AK Ramdas has worked with the Engineering Export Promotion Council of the ministry of commerce. He was also associated with various committees of the Council. His international career took him to places like Beirut, Kuwait and Dubai at a time when these were small trading outposts; and later to the US.)