KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - Delayed coal projects in India have received a kick-start with the government’s newly set-up Cabinet Committee on Investments (CCI), which has approved six of the proposed 40 coal projects.

According to government officials, while the number of projects approved was small compared with the total number of those pending, this was at least a start in the process of fast-tracking coal investments, which had been hanging fire for years for want of statutory clearances from multiple Ministries.

The CCI had directed various Ministries to expedite a review of the remaining 36 coal projects, following which these would be taken up for approval by the CCI within the shortest possible time, officials said.

Even among the pending projects, the CCI had given priority to 12 projects with the combined capacity to produce 37-million tons of coal a year, constituting investment of $260-million.

The main issues that were cleared by the CCI related to pending environmental and forest clearances for the 12 projects envisaged in the Jharkhand, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh provinces.

Another issue discussed by the CCI was a demand from coal major Coal India Limited (CIL) that its employees be granted immunity from prosecution for the violation of environmental laws when implementing mining projects across the country.

CIL argued that in view of spiralling demand for coal and the numerous hurdles faced by the miner in developing greenfield mines, it was in the national interest to grant this immunity to miners and enable them to shorten project gestation periods.

However, the issue was being vehemently opposed by the Forest and Environment Ministry as well as other nongovernmental organisations working towards forest and environmental protection.

No decision on this issue had been announced by the government.

In another related development, the Indian government had eased rules governing environmental and forest clearances to facilitate exploratory drilling.

From now on the Forest and Environment Ministry would consider two separate applications for environment and forest clearances from the coal and power sectors. At present, projects in the coal and power sectors could not commence until investors secured both forest and environment approvals and it was claimed this was one of the biggest causes of project delays.

The Forest and Environment Ministry would consider the two sets of applications where the forest-land required was less than half of the total land required for the project. This has been based on the premise that investors would be required to have alternative project plans in case forest approval was rejected by the government.