Coal news and updates

Delayed ECs, FCs may derail Coal India’s 1-bn-tons plan

India Coal Market Watch

December 10: In order to achieve its ambitious coal production target of 1 billion tons by 2020, Coal India Ltd (CIL) has lined up more than 210 projects for environmental clearance (EC), but the slow rate of clearance raises apprehension about timely completion of these projects.

According to data available with ICMW, CIL subsidiaries have identified around 210 projects which are scheduled to get ECs between December 2014 and December 2019.

Among these, around 30 projects are scheduled to get EC in the current year (2015-16). However, till November, only 12 projects have obtained EC, according to a recent statement by Coal Minister Piyush Goyal in Parliament.

The list of projects given approval till November, however, includes blocks that were scheduled to obtain the same earlier.

Asked to comment on the matter, a CIL source said, “The Union government is taking all possible steps to expedite clearances but, in many cases, the projects are getting delayed due to lack of timely response from the state authorities and/or policy related issues.”

Besides ECs, around 150 projects are listed for forestry clearances (FCs) and around 170 projects are identified for getting land acquisition during December 2014 to December 2019.

In case of FCs, the scenario is equally bad as more than 70 projects have a timeline of 2015-16, while only a handful of them have obtained FC so far this year.