Jairam Ramesh justifies coal block clearance in Chhattisgarh to NGT

New Delhi: Former environment minister Jairam Ramesh wrote a letter to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday, justifying his overruling of the forest advisory committee’s (FAC) recommendation for clearance of three cases on coal mining in Chhattisgarh back in 2011, when he was the environment minister.

add_main_imageThere was a hearing in NGT on Monday on the matter of the environment ministry, under Ramesh, granting clearance to open up the Tara, Parsa East and Kante Basan blocks in Hasdeo-Arand forest region of Chhattisgarh to coal mining.

In June 2011, Ramesh had said that he disagreed with the FAC, the committee of the ministry which advises it on matters related to forest clearance and decided to go ahead with stage 1 forest clearance for the three mines in Chhattisgarh. He had justified his decision by saying that the three mines were in the fringe area of the biodiversity rich area and the wildlife concerns could be tackled through a well prepared wildlife management plan. NextMAds