Sunday, October 15, 2006

XLRI and ISM to Study Illegal Coal Mining

Financial Express (OCT 14):

The Indian School of Mines (ISM) and XLRI, Jamshedpur will jointly conduct a study to assess the problem of illegal mining in West Bengal and Jharkhand, that had led to accidents and deaths in the past.

The study would assess the number of illegal mines and total coal reserves and see whether it is possible to run them on a cooperative basis, Coal India Ltd chairman Partha S Bhattacharya said here on Friday.

As per the recommendations of a high-powered committee looking into illegal mining, headed by the Union minister of state for coal Dasari Narayana Rao, the two institutes would conduct the study, he said.... The two institutes would give their suggestions as to how the problem of illegal mining could be tackled.

Turning to the problem of wet and inferior quality coal supplied by CIL subsidiary, Eastern Coalfields Ltd to power plants in the state, Bhattacharya said due to heavy rain in late September, coal pithead and sidings were inundated.

“But it was a temporary problem,” he said. Bhattacharya pointed out that the Kolkaghat thermal power station in the state required six rakes of coal daily but it faced shortage of storage capacity. The power plant would not have faced any problem, had there been a 15-day coal storage capacity, he added.

The CIL chairman also sought the intervention of the chief minister for evacuating two lakh tonne of coal at Salanpur.

PTI

No comments:

Post a Comment

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails