Guwahati: The Union Environment Ministry has issued new guidelines that allow state governments to permit the commencement of mining operations on non-forest land contiguous with a forest, even before the final clearance is accorded.
The decision was taken by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) in October 2021 and has now been extended to all minerals. The FAC has imposed certain conditions in order to avoid creating a ‘fait accompli’ situation.
These include that plans for mining in non-forest areas of a coal block must not involve any forest area and that no component of mining activity in the non-forest land shall have any dependency on the forest area of the same block.
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The decision has been met with criticism from environmentalists and legal experts, who argued that it was a legal subsidy to the mining sector.
The FAC’s decision comes after the 2014 Supreme Court ruling that stated that mining companies that invested money in blocks without getting all clearances took the decision at their own risk.
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In addition, the ministry has also notified the guidelines on Accredited Compensatory Afforestation (ACA). Under ACA, any interested person or entity can develop plantations on non-forest land and trade them with the project proponent that is seeking the diversion of forest land for its project.