Government of Australia has stopped the process of environmental clearance in India. The process of coal project was owned by GVK Power & Infrastructure, with a anticipation that it will develop new foreign energy assets.

Government of Australia

Tony Burke minster of environment confirmed that the ecological concerns remained over the Alpha coal and rail project, which GVK co-owns in the northern state of Queensland with Gina Rinehart, the billionaire and mining heiress.

He further said that we are not interested in delaying the process of project in India but now the position is that we will not comprise environmental standards with India.

Australia and India

In India there is shortage of acute energy resources for which many dealings related to coal assets are taking place. In some mining districts domestic coal scene are bested with slow-moving clearances and Maoist uprisings.

Delay process for the Alpha project in India result a major setback to GVK, which is one of the largest power and infrastructure groups in India. These groups races against a number of other energy companies to open up coal supplies in Queensland’s Galilee Basin.

In India according to sources GVK assures that they will wait for the positive result from Minister Burke side and confirmed that if project is stopped by means does not mean that it will not continue further. The decision comes less than a week after the project, which GVK acquired as part of $1.3bn deal with Ms Rinehart’s Hancock group in September 2011, was given the go-ahead by the government of Queensland.

To develop the mining assets acquired as part of the deal, the group of India invest about $10bn and expects the Alpha project to produce its first coal by 2015. The decision made by Mr Burke was remarked by industry analysts and they said that few questions will be raised about environmental clearances for future Australian coal development projects.