Thursday, August 16, 2012

Conditions for Mining in Forest Lands
Use of forest land for mining requires prior approval of Central Government under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. To mitigate impacts of mining on flora and fauna, approvals accorded under the Forest ( Conservation) Act, 1980 for diversion of forest land for mining projects are subject to fulfilment of the following conditions:

(i) Legal status of forest land to remain unchanged.
(ii) Creation and maintenance of compensatory afforestation as per guidelines from funds realised from the user agency.
(iii) Transfer and mutation of non-forest land identified to raise compensatory afforestation in favour of Forest Department, if applicable.
(iv) Notification of non-forest land identified to raise compensatory afforestation as Reserved Forest/Protected Forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or local Forest Act.
(v) Payment of Net Present Value (NPV) at the applicable rates.
(vi) Undertaking to pay additional amount of NPV, if so determined.
(vii) Transfer of funds realized from user agency to ad-hoc CAMPA.
(viii) User Agency to provide alternate fuel to the labourers and the staff working at the project site so as to avoid any damage & pressure on adjacent forest areas.
(ix) The forest land shall not be used for any purpose other than that specified in the proposals.
(x) Phased reclamation of mined area.
(xi) Afforestation and fencing of safety zone area.
(xii) Afforestation on one and half times degraded forest land in lieu of the area used for safety zone.
(xiii) In case of underground mines, areas on surface to be fenced and afforested.
(xiv) Gap planting and soil & moisture conservation activities to restock and rejuvenate the degraded open forests (having crown density less than 0.40), if any, located in the area within 100 m. from outer perimeter of the mining lease; (xv) De-silting of the village tanks and other water bodies located within five km from the mine lease boundary so as to mitigate the impact of siltation of such tanks/water bodies, whenever required;
(xvi) Execution of following activities by the user agency at the project cost:
(a) A plan containing appropriate mitigative measures to minimize soil erosion and choking of streams shall be prepared and implemented;
(b) Planting of adequate drought hardy plant species and sowing of seeds in the appropriate area within the mining lease to arrest soil erosion;
(c) Construction of check dams, retention /toe walls to arrest sliding down of the excavated material along the contour;
(d) Stabilize the overburden dumps by appropriate grading/benching so as to ensure that angles of repose at any given place is less than 28o; and
(xvii) Strict adherence to the prescribed top soil management.
(xviii) Demarcation of lease area to be done on the ground at project cost using four feet high reinforced cement concrete pillars with serial numbers, forward & back bearings, distance from pillar to pillar and DGPS coordinates.
(xix) Settlement of Rights, if any, in accordance with the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
(xx) Rehabilitation of project affected families, if any.
(xxi) Environmental clearance, if required.
(xxii) Submission of annual self-monitoring report on compliance conditions to comply with the conditions stipulated in approval.
(xxiii) The User Agency and the State Government to ensure compliance to provisions of the all Acts, Rules, Regulations and Guidelines, for the time being in force, as applicable to the project.

Apart from the above–indicated standard conditions applicable to mining projects, Central Government also stipulates project specific conditions, to mitigate specific impact(s), if any, of mining projects.

The above information was laid in the Parliament by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment and Forests Shrimati Jayanthi Natarajan. 

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