Coal under Damodar may be mined

A central government agency has been asked to prepare the action plan to exploit and raise coking coal lying under the Damodar river flowing through Jharkhand.

According to sources in Coal India Limited (CIL), nearly 73 million ton of coking coal was located under the river Damodar which originated in the state and flowed for quite some distance through Jharkhand before flowing into West Bengal.

As the reserves of trapped coal was located in the command area of Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), a subsidiary of CIL, had requested the Ranchi-based Coal Mines Planning & Design Institute Limited (CMPDIL), another subsidiary of CIL, to undertake a detailed action plan called the 'Damodar River Diversion Project'.

The diversion would be done in the Bokaro and Kargil area.

Necessary clearances for this was recently granted by the Union coal ministry.

CIL sources pointed out the project of raising the coal trapped in seams under the Damodar river in Jharkhand was first proposed more than 20 years ago.

Sadly, nothing was done in all these years to take it forward and exploit the trapped coal lying under the river.

The mine companies blamed technical complications and said it had become complicated becasue of the existence of some railway bridges on the river at certain points.

If the river was diverted, fresh bridges would have to be built to carry roads and train lines across the river.

Two power plants owned by the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), the Bokaro Thermal Power Station and the Chandrapura Thermal Power Station, depended on drawn from the Damodar river.

The diversion could affect their supply.

On the other hand, the coal was needed.

Deamnd for coking coal in the country was steadily increasing and the subsidiary companies of CIL could no longer meet the demand for coal from even the core sector industries.

Besides, the Centre had started making allotments of coal blocks to the private sector for their speedy exploitation and meet in-house demand for coal.

This meant CIL was unlikely to get fresh coal blocks easily and therefore had to focus on exploiting all existing reserves to the full

Besides, CIL's production of coal was falling because of several reasons and this provided added urgency to the need to exploit all existing reserves as soon as possible. It was against this backdrop and the changing situation that CIL decided to immediately kickstart the initiative to use all options to raise coal production. This led to revival of the old plan to raise the coal trapped beneath the Damodar river.