April 20, 2024 13:39 (IST)
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Coal endangers India's fresh water sources: Greenpeace India
New Delhi, May 5 (IBNS) Even as the country reels under severe drought, information secured by Greenpeace suggests that India's "coal-hungry government" is willing to overlook policy meant to protect the country’s pristine forests, wildlife and the fresh-water sources.
The information accessed by Greenpeace India under the Right to Information (RTI) from the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) reveals that as many as 417 out of 825 current and future coal blocks should be categorised as inviolate areas as per hydrological parameters.
Last year, the Forest Survey of India (FSI) assessed 825 coal blocks based on the draft parameters for identification of inviolate forest areas. For applying the hydrology parameter, the MoEFCC has recommended excluding 250 m on either side of a first order stream while marking the boundaries of coal blocks.
"Taking this criteria into consideration, a whopping 50.5 percent of the coal blocks are rendered as ‘partially inviolate’ according to the RTI information (refer to theses letters from Forest Survey of India to MoEFCC, Coal Ministry to MoEFCC and MoEFCC to Coal Ministry)," a Greenpeace statement claimed on Thursday.
“It's been close to four years since the exercise to identify inviolate areas started and the MoEFCC is still dragging its feet on this policy while the coal ministry is going ahead with auctioning and allotting these precious forest areas,” said Nandikesh Sivalingam, senior campaigner, Greenpeace India.
“The MoEFCC’s silence gives tacit go-ahead to the government’s coal-dependent energy policy. In effect, it allows the greed for coal to take precedence over everything else, including the inevitable consequence of coal mining destroying sensitive forest areas and freshwater sources in our drought-afflicted country,” said he.
“Mining in the forests even beyond the 250m of the river banks often has a dramatic detrimental impact on the catchment, including water pollution, erosion and worsening water scarcity during dry season,” said Sivalingam.
He added that if all the streams (second and third order) in the river basins are to be taken into consideration, the impact on central India’s water sources could be much higher.
Besides the hydrological parameters, the RTI data accessed by Greenpeace India shows that currently the list of inviolate coal blocks stand at a mere 49, covering an area of 1271.43 Sq Km as per four parameters: forest cover, forest type, biological richness and landscape integrity.
Reports show that the government has started applying the inviolate policy partially. However it is not clear how they include or exclude coal blocks from this list. At the same time, coal blocks listed as inviolate are being auctioned/allotted to mining companies.
“What is worrying is the callousness that the MoEFCC has towards protecting the country’s pristine natural resources. It's no longer only about forests, it's clear that mining in the central Indian forest could also have serious impacts on water sources,” said Sivalingam.
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