Development of Indian Coal Industry specific Environment Audit Format:

Environmental audit has been incorporated as one of the business principles in almost all the industries throughout the world. In India, Regulatory authorities have mandated to submit environmental statement in Form V, which the industry is under obligation to comply. In Indian coal industries, the submission of environmental statement in form V is scrupulously done as mandated by the rules since 1993 itself. Apart from Form V, there are number of returns, which are to be submitted by Coal Industry in fulfillment of statutory provisions. The entire process spaced in the year at different times baffles the field Environment engineers. Therefore a need is felt to have a comprehensive format for Environment Statement, which covers all the statutory requirements at the same time covering all the pollution aspects of the Coal mining industry. This paper, highlighting, the gaps in existing format & suggests a new Coal industry specific format for adoption across the Coal Industry. This developed format may be considered by the MoEFCC for adoption and till then may be implemented by Coal Companies for creation of data base.