Tara coal block row: Ministry, BJP hit back at Congress claims

A day after the Congress accused the Narendra Modi government of ecocide over the auction of the Tara coal block in Chhattisgarh's Hasdeo-Aranya, the Union Coal Ministry and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the State issued separate clarifications on the matter.

The Coal Ministry said the Tara coal block entered the auction process only after its boundaries were revised. In a statement, it noted that the block was initially offered in 2023 but was withdrawn from the commercial coal mine auction after the Chhattisgarh government asked for the exclusion of blocks located in the Hasdeo-Arand area. Blocks in that area falling within the Lemru Elephant Corridor were consequently left out of later auction phases.

The Ministry said it received a letter from the Chhattisgarh government on December 11, 2025, seeking the inclusion of the Tara block on the ground that it lies outside the Lemru Elephant Corridor and could be offered in the next auction phase.

The Congress's allegations were levelled on Thursday by general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh, who said mining in the Tara block could destroy more than 4,000 acres of dense forest and over 10 lakh trees. He pointed to the Chhattisgarh Assembly's unanimous opposition to new coal blocks in Hasdeo-Aranya in 2022, and to the State government's submission to the Supreme Court in 2023, when it was run by the Congress under former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, that no new mines were needed. He also warned that mining could disrupt elephant corridors in the Lemru Elephant Reserve and endanger threatened species.

Responding later, senior BJP leader and Chairman of the Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation Saurabh Singh said it was the Congress that had paved the way for mining in the region and advanced the forest clearance process. He said Mr. Baghel had, during his tenure as Chief Minister, formally asked the Union Coal Minister in June 2021 to allocate the Tara coal block to the CMDC.

Mr. Singh also said the path for mining in the Hasdeo-Arand region was cleared during the previous United Progressive Alliance government. He claimed that despite the Forest Advisory Committee not recommending the Tara and Parsa East & Kete Basan projects, the then Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, granted clearance to both, with Stage-I forest clearance for Tara coming on June 23, 2011.

Asserting that mining would begin only after all statutory and environmental clearances, including forest approval, and stipulated conditions were met, Mr. Singh rejected the Congress's estimate of the environmental impact. He dismissed the claim of over a million trees being felled as untrue and said a rough estimate suggested barely one-tenth of that number would be cut for the Tara project, and that too in phases.

Mr. Ramesh had earlier said no amount of compensatory afforestation could make up for the destruction of such a large natural forest area.