A major bottleneck for Indian energy resources mining and exploration has been attaining various regulatory approvals to undertake the activities. One such approval, which is also the most important one, is environmental clearance.
Contractors have surrendered or relinquished the areas awarded to undertake hydrocarbons exploration or mining activities, due to delay in getting such clearances or at times approvals being denied.
To overcome such hurdles, the Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF & CC) has decided to come up with guidelines that will detail how much and what can be allowed for undertaking exploration activities.
Secretary of Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change CK Mishra in conversation with BusinessLine agreed that it is a very good idea to have a pre-embedded contract – where all approvals are in place before awarding the mining areas. But, when will that happen remains to be seen.
