India is poised to double its coal production in a few years. The country aims to push production to 1 billion tonne by 2019 from its coal mines. India’s Coal behemoth Coal India (CIL) has set a target to mine 1 billion t of coal by 2019 which is double the current output of 500 million tonnes.
According to the government, the total coal reserves as on 1st April 2014 was 301.56 Billion Tonnes (BT) of which 125.91 BT is in the proved category and balance is indicated and inferred categories. However, at present, the actual production of coal falls short of the overall demand for coal.
Piyush Goyal, (Minister of state (IC) for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha said the gap between total consumption and domestic supply is being met through imports.
The domestic production of coal has been constrained due to problems in expanding the capacity arising from difficulties in land acquisition, R&R, geo-mining conditions, difficulties in obtaining environment clearance, restrictions arising out of imposition of Central Environmental Pollution Index guidelines and non-availability of forest clearances in time.
Law and order condition in some areas and lack of adequate infrastructure for evacuation of coal including delay in construction of rail Infrastructure have also been constraining factor in some major coalfields.
The following are the measures being taken/contemplated for enhancing domestic coal production:
• An exercise has been carried out to prepare a roadmap for achieving the production level of One Billion Tonne coal by the year 2019-20. So far, mine/projects have been identified to produce about 908 Mt.
• Up gradation and modernization of existing technology in phases. Mega opencast projects have been planned with higher size of equipment for excavation, transportation, drilling and other auxiliary operations of international standard.
• Deployment a Continuous miners (CMs) for mass production technology & Long Wall Mining where ever geo mining conditions permits.
• Periodical review at the Ministry level and by an inter ministerial committee set up under the Chairman, Railway Board with secretaries of Coal, Power, and Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) as members to expedite the railway projects aimed at enhancing the evacuation capacities.
The following steps are also being taken to improve quality of coal:
i. Selective mining for elimination of bands wherever necessary /feasible.
ii. Appropriate positioning of overburden (OB) and coal benches to avoid contamination.
iii. Scrapping/cleaning of coal benches before blasting.
iv. Installation of metal detectors / magnetic separators over running conveyors before coal loading.
v. Crushing arrangement for supply of sized coal.
vi. All the major projects having high capacity coal handling plants to dispatch sized and uniform quality of coal to suit the requirement of the consumers.
vii. Shale picking, if any, at mine face, stocks, sidings and from the wagons.
viii. Beneficiation of non-coking coal in washeries have been planned on “Build Operate & Maintain” (BOM) basis in addition to the existing capacity of non-coking coal washeries.
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