GoM decides to scrap MoEF’s ‘go and no go’ policy

The Group of Minister (GoM) is scrapping the Ministry of Environment and Forest’s (MoEF) policy, which categorize mining and non mining forest areas, well known as go and no go, saying the policy had no legal base. The go and no go policy had adversely affected the mining industry and other key industries like, power and steel etc. This move was expected by the central government as Jairam Ramesh, who introduced the policy, was replaced by Jayanti Natarajan. However, GoM headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukharjee guided the Forest Survey of India (FSI) to scientifically demarcate pristine forests.

The industry has welcomed the move of government, as the policy was affecting the key sectors production and loss of opportunity cost. In the GoM meeting, Natarajan agreed with the suggestions made by B K Chaturvedi Committee, which said forest clearances should be based on the Forest Clearance Act instead of go and no go policy. The committee had argued that the go and no go policy had no legal sanctity and projects cannot be cleared or barred based on its guidelines.

In the meeting of GoM, Natarajan indicated that she would be taking up projects on a case to case basis, and in future no projects would be judged on the basis of go and no go policy guideline made by Jairam Ramesh. The GoM was created in February 2011, to clear difference on go and no go policy. The power, coal and steel ministries were against this policy.  

After the introduction of go and no go policy, around 203 coal blocks with reserve of more than 600 million tonne in nine major coalfields has been classified as no go areas for mining activities. These include many mines belonging to government owned Coal India , private sector companies like Essar and Hindalco, KSK Energy, and the Hasdeo Arand. The coal mines were located in the densely forested areas.

The GoM had also set up a committee under Planning Commission member Chaturvedi to resolve the issue of NTP’s North Karanpura power plant, which falls in a coal bearing area in Jharkhand. However, around eight coal blocks has got forest clearance from the panel created by the Prime Minister’s Office, headed by T K A Nair, principal secretary to the Prime Minister. As per the planning commission data, the power sector alone was losing potential production of 143,000 MW of power due to the MoEF’s policy.