All that was discussed in the Houses through the day
51 coal projects okayed since last year
The Union Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change(MoEF&CC) has approved 51 coal-mining projects since 2019-20, coal and mines minister Pralhad Joshi told Rajya Sabha (RS) September 19, 2020.
He claimed 31,600 jobs would be created in approved projects of Coal India Ltd and Singareni Collieries Co Ltd.
Odisha: 37% rise in human deaths from elephant conflicts
At least 117 people were killed in human-elephant conflicts in 2019-20, up from 85 in 2018-19, junior forest minister Babul Supriyo told Rajya Sabha. The Centre has more than doubled allocation to conserve pachyderms in the last five years, he claimed.
Pushing states to plant more
The environment ministry has advised states August 7, 2020 to adopt a new strategy to enhance their dense forest covers to draw more central resources (as recommended in an interim report of the 15th hFinance Commission), Supriyo told the upper house.
The ministry has also advised states and Union territories to work towards planting 145.05 crore seedlings in 2020-21 to increase green cover by 2.23 million hectares.
Receding groundwater
Groundwater levels have been declining in parts of India because of continuous withdrawal driven by an increasing population, rising industrialisation and urbanization, junior water minister Rattan Lal Kataria told RS.
Impact of the Lockdown On Mining Sector
The gross value added at basic (2011-12) prices by mining and quarrying declined 23.3 per cent during April-June 2020-21 from a year ago, Joshi replied to a question by Vinay Sahasrabuddhe.
He didn’t provide details of the ministry’s profit / loss during the lockdown to curb the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-16) pandemic, citing the deadlines for companies filing information still some time away.
Joshi claimed there was only instance of retrenchment in the sector since March, affecting 89 workers and that the Labour Bureau had not received any information of lay-offs.
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