GoM to meet to address 'no go' mining issue

Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal today said a Group of Ministers on Coal will meet within a week to try and iron out the vexed issue of "go" and "no-go" areas in coal blocks.

"The Group of Ministers will meet in the next three-four days or within a week to deliberate on issues like 'go' and 'no-go', among others," Jaiswal told reporters on the sidelines of an Assocham event here. Last year, the Environment Ministry had prohibited mining in 'no-go' areas, where the forest cover is 30%. The 'no-go' classification disallowed mining in 203 blocks with the potential of producing 660 million tonnes of coal a year. The coal exploited from these blocks could have been used to generate around 1.3 lakh MW of power per annum.