A U-turn on an elephant reserve, a bonanza for coal miners

Why read this story?

Editor's note: Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel recently did a U-turn on the size of a proposed elephant reserve. He sought to shrink the upcoming Lemru Elephant Reserve to just a tenth of its planned size, shows correspondence of the state forest department. On the face of it, his decision would appear to have something to do with elephants, except for the tiny detail that if the state acts upon the chief minister’s command, four coal blocks that fall within the originally proposed larger area of the reserve will be left out. These are the Kente Extension, Parsa and Gidhmuri Paturia coal blocks, with 620 million tonnes of coal reserves, slated to be operated by the Adani group, and the Madanpur South coal block, with 158 million tonnes of reserves, to be operated by the Aditya Birla Group.  The mines are currently awaiting environmental and forest approvals from the central government. If they are left out of the elephant reserve, they do not need to seek wildlife clearances, which involve a long process of scrutiny that can lead to rejection—meaning the mines …