Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday allowed opening of three coal-blocks in Hasdeo-Arand forest region in Chattisgarh, a no-go area, ignoring his own policy of not allowing mining.

In his order dated June 23, Ramesh gave clearance to open up the Tara, Parsa East and Kante Basan coal-blocks saying that these three falls in the fringe and not in the biodiversity-rich forest region.

Minister ignored his own ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) which had earlier recommended rejecting the proposals made by the Chattisgarh government. The FAC had been deliberating on these proposals for almost eighteen months.

The minister in his order rejected the final recommendations by FAC citing six reasons. He said these three coal-blocks are clearly in the fringe and not in the biodiversity-rich forest region. Also, substantial changes have been introduced in the mining plans as originally envisaged. Four significant changes have been incorporated in the Tara coal-block proposal to deal with ministry’s concern. And as far as Parsa East and Kante Basan are concerned, where the forest quality is poorer than Tara by the FAC’s own assessment, the revised proposal envisages two phases.

The third reason which Ramesh cited is that the concerns identified relating to wildlife can and should be taken care of through a well-prepared and well-executed wildlife management plan and programme.

Minister also said that these coal-blocks are linked to supercritical thermal power generating stations. And this is an explicit pre-condition for approval in order to remove any ambiguity on this score.

The fifth reason for rejecting FAC recommendation that Ramesh mentioned in his order is that both the state governments involved – Chattisgarh and Rajasthan have been persistently following-up since their power generation plans are closely linked with these coal-blocks.

And at last he said, as a minister it is necessarily for him to keep the broader developmental picture in mind and balance out different objectives and considerations.