Coal Minister Jaiswal meets Ramesh to solve vexed mining issues

New Delhi, Feb 8 (ANI): Following the proposal of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to constitute a Group of Ministers (GoM) in a bid to solve the vexed issue of 'go' and 'no go' zone of coal blocks, Coal Minister Shriprakash Jaiswal met Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh here today.

"Today I had a meeting with Jairam Ramesh. Officers from both the ministries were present during the meeting and so I hope that this meeting will resolve many issues," Jaiswal told reporters after the meeting.

"The next meeting will be held on February 10. We hope that, for the benefit of this country, its energy (resources), for improvement of industrialization, both the ministries will sit together to discuss and would be able to resolve all the issues of MoEF," he added.

He also said that he wouldn't let coal India's production to get hampered.

The environment ministry had prohibited mining in 'no-go' areas, where the forest cover is approximately 30 percent.

The 'no-go' classification caused the restriction of mining in 203 blocks with the potential of producing 660 million tones of coal a year that could have been used to generate around 1.3 lakh MW of power per annum.

Coal India, which accounts for over 80 per cent of India's production, is likely to suffer a marginal shortfall in its targeted 431.5 million tonnes production for this fiscal. Its output target for 2011-12 is 460.5 million tonnes. (ANI)