The Power Ministry is seeking special dispensation from the Ministry of Environment and Forests to facilitate bidding for ultra mega power projects of 4,000 MW each in Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
“The Power Ministry wants the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to offer in-principle environment clearance to the entire power project, without insisting on environment and forest clearance for the attached coal block,” said a Power Ministry official.
The nodal Ministry wants the MoEF to offer ‘in-principle’ forest clearances for linked coal blocks, prior to bidding. After the bidding, stage-I and II forest clearances for the coal blocks will be sought by the project developer.
According to the Power Ministry, in the normal practice, the special purpose vehicle (set up by Power Finance Corporation) obtains environment clearance for the mega project. After bidding and transfer of the SPV to the power producer, the latter starts development work for the captive block. The company drafts a mining plan, and seeks environment and forest clearance of the captive coal blocks.
For instance, for the Bedabahal project in Odisha, the SPV submitted its application for environment clearance on January 3, 2012. But the MoEF has not given its go-ahead. Pending the eco clearance, the auction process cannot be completed. For the Bedabahal project, three captive mines were selected — Meenakshi, Meenakshi B and Meenakshi dip side. Of these, Meenakshi is explored but exploration in the other blocks’ is not completed.
Now, the Power Ministry is seeking environmental clearance for the project without furnishing the status of environmental and forest clearances for the linked mines because they are not completely explored.
Imported coal
At the same time, in the case of imported coal-based ultra mega projects, the Power Ministry wants the MoEF to relax the conditions in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) for fuel supply. “The selected company is required to tie up imported coal after the project is allocated,” said the official. Similarly, for the Chhattisgarh project, the Power Ministry wants the MoEF to indicate that the coal blocks (Pindraki and Puta Parogia) would be considered for forest clearances.
The MoEF indication is required because the blocks were earlier categorised as no-go areas. The Group of Ministers (GoM) has decided to do away with the go-no-go concept.