India, July 21 -- Over 368,000 trees "will be affected" due to the Parsa East Kente Basan (PEKB) coal mining project in Chhattisgarh's Hasdeo Arand, one of India's last remaining old-growth forests, minister of state for environment Kirti Vardhan Singh told Lok Sabha on Monday.

Hasdeo Arand is one of the largest contiguous stretches of dense forests in central India. It spans 170,000 hectares and has 22 coal blocks underneath it.

The minister provided the information on the tree felling there in a written response to Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation lawmaker Raja Ram Singh's question. The lawmaker from Bihar asked whether the government was aware that over 200,000 trees had been felled for the Adani Enterprises pro...