The Ministry of Coal is planning to connect the mining plan portal to the Parivesh website, a senior official said. PARIVESH is a single-window platform for online submission, tracking and management of projects submitted by project supporters to the Ministry of the Environment to obtain various types of clearances.
“To take environmental clearance there is a PARIVESH portal. We are linking our mining plan portal with PARIVESH portal. From one portal everyone can see, (be) monitored,” Coal Secretary Anil Kumar Jain said during stakeholders consultation on auction of coal mines for commercial mining organised by Ficci.
He said the government had taken steps to make it easier to do business in the coal sector. The climate and forest clearing program for coal mines has improved, he said.
“So much improvement has been made. To seek environment clearance (EC) (for a mine) 300-250 days were taken. A year back it came down to 110 days. Now they (environment ministry) have made it to 90 days,” he explained.
For commercial mining, several relaxations were in the bidding terms, Jain said adding, “Everything was considered very minutely. Everything was worked out very systematically.”
He said that if required, the government could spend Rs 50,000 crore in the eastern part of the country in the states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha to increase the coal evacuation.
Last month , the government initiated an auction process for 41 coal blocks for commercial mining, a move that opens up India’s coal market to private companies, and called it a big step in the direction of India’s self-reliance.
