Bharat Coking eyes new coal mines

Mafia pressure, hurdles in acquiring land for new coal mines in and around Dhanbad and the Jharkhand state government's apathy towards its problems has forced Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) to look for areas outside Jharkhand for new mines.

Sources in BCCL, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL), said it has identified three blocks in Angul district of Orissa. Coal Mines Planning and Development institute (CMPDI) has estimated existence of 1,500 million tons of coal deposits there.

These deposits were earlier expected to be mined by Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL). The coal seams were at Utkal, Patrapada and Auli.

BCCL would start open cast mining at Utkal block with estimated reserves of 380 million tons in 10 seams. BCCL will be required to remove only one million ton of overburden to mine an equal quantity of coal.

Later BCCL will develop Patrapada with eight seams containing 430 million tonnes of coal, and Auli with about 200 million tons of coal.

BCCL also plans to start mining in Hazaribagh and Chatra districts of Jharkhand, where CMPDI has detected virgin seams of coal.

The Union coal ministry had identified about 200 virgin coal deposits, some to be allotted to public sector coal companies and others to be sold to private mining agencies to meet the coal demand of domestic steel and power sectors.

BCCL was keen on getting some virgin coal blocks.