South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), a leading subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL), has made significant progress in environmental sustainability through successful implementation of Authorized Compensatory Afforestation (ACA) guidelines issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. It aims to increase forest cover and promote afforestation on non-forest lands, thereby contributing to national environmental goals and earning valuable carbon credits.
Coal mining projects often require forest land. This also requires Forestry Clearance (FC) as part of the environmental approval process. A major challenge in obtaining such permission is to identify suitable compensatory afforestation (CA) land. In this regard, the Ministry has issued guidelines for ACA on January 24, 2023. These are aimed at streamlining the forestry clearance approval process, reducing CA costs and increasing afforestation efforts. The ACA guidelines encourage both government institutions and private landowners to take up afforestation on fallow lands, which will increase trees outside forest boundaries (TOF) and help in biodiversity.
Showing a proactive approach towards ACA guidelines, SECL identified about 2,245 hectares of non-forest-de-silted land, comprising 1,424 hectares in Chhattisgarh and 821 hectares in Madhya Pradesh. These lands were identified as suitable for ACA and were proposed to the respective State Forest Departments for notification as ACA land banks. This move is expected to expedite the FC process for future coal mining projects that require forest land diversion.