Mining And Environment in India

30052020                                                                             -  Rajesh Deoliya [rajeshdeoliya@gmail.com]   Background: India imported about 208 million tonne of coal in year 2017-18 ( source: Energy Statistics, 2019, Ministry of Statistics and Programmed Implementation, Govt of India) which included coking and non coking coal. The increased energy consumption and poor quality of coal is contributing to rise of coal Import. India is importing low grade coal too to meet requirement of thermal power plants and other end users. Though India produced about 729 million tonne of coal in year 2019-20. (source: https://coal.nic.in/ content/ production-and-supplies), still there is strong need of augmenting domestic coal production to reduce coal import.  Ministry of Coal (MoC), Government of India time to time notify coal mines for allocation. In a statement in Loksabha, government on 09.03.2018 informed that 82 coal mines have been allocated by way of