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Activists draw up plan for coal mine reallocation

Environment activists had urged the Centre to draw a comprehensive plan to save the forests while reallocating and auctioning the coal blocks that the apex court had recently cancelled. "Only 12 per cent of total coal bearing areas in the country had been falling under the forested pockets and elephant zone that could be dropped when the coal mines would be reallocated," advocate and activist Sudip Shrivastava said.

He is one of the applicants in the petition filed in the Supreme Court in connection with the coal block allotment that the apex court had cancelled.The remaining coal bearing areas had been in non-forest pockets and do not pose any threat to the wildlife and environment, he said, adding that the non-forested areas had sufficient reserves that could cater to country's coal demand for another 80 to 100 years. "We demand that the Centre should now allot coal blocks that had been in the non-forest areas," Shrivastava said.

The Greenpeace India, an organization fighting to protect environment, released the report titled "Elephant in the Room" that studied the human-elephant conflicts report in the four forest divisions of Chhattisgarh. Besides Shrivastava, leading environment activists including Alok Shukla, Sajal Madhu were also present on the occasion."Despite glaring evidence of elephant presence in the four forest divisions and advice from expert bodies to protect Korba and Dharamjaigarh forests, the state had dropped the proposed Lemru elephant reserve possibly due to mining interests," Nandikesh Shivalingam, Greenpeace campaigner and the author of the report, said.

Source: Business Standard