The Hindu Business Line : Hurdles to Bharat Coking tapping Jharia fields cleared

The Jharkhand government has formed a rehabilitation and development authority with a plan to set up townships where all residents and business establishments located on the fire-prone area would be shifted.

Dhanbad , Feb. 8

THE stiff resistance for the implementation of Jharia Action Plan (JAP) which aims at shifting about 65,000 houses from as many as 532 endangered mine sites has been countered thus paving the way for Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) to access about 4.6 billion tonnes of untapped coking coal reserve in the Jharia coalfields.

Approving the Rs 5,792-crore action plan, the Planning Commission has advised BCCL to implement it within 10 years instead of a 20-year timeframe formulated earlier in response to the directive by the Supreme Court in 2003.

The JAP has components such as fire control at 34 projects in 40 mines and stabilisation of 121 fire bearing mine sites.

The entire money earmarked for JAP would be organised from the sale of coal.

Coal India Ltd (CIL) has thus decided to increase Stowing Exercise duty from Rs 5.5 to Rs 10 per tonne of coal produced by all its production subsidiaries, while a levy at the rate of Rs 6 per tonne will be charged on all CIL's profit making companies. These two measures would help generate about Rs 350 crore per annum, the entire money being spent on implementation of JAP.

The first mine fire at Jharia Coalfields was detected in 1916. In subsequent years the fire spread due to unscientific mining practices employed during the pre-nationalisation period.

BCCL, when it was incorporated in 1972, inherited 70 mine fires (covering 17 sq kms). About 37 million tonnes of coal have been lost in the fire.

A committee constituted by the Directorate General of Mine Safety (DGMS) has said stabilisation of fire-bearing mines was not a permanent solution as lives of people living in coal bearing areas would be endangered in the long run. Rehabilitation of people in the affected area would require building 15,000 houses.

Meanwhile, the Jharkhand government has formed a Jharia Rehabilitation and Development Authority (JRDA) with a plan to set up townships on the northern and eastern sides of Jharia Coalfields. All residents and business establishments located on the fire-prone area would be shifted to the new townships.

Already, construction of houses is in full swing by the JRDA.

Senior executives of BCCL felt that JAP, once implemented, would provide scope for large scale opencast mining at the Jharia coalfields, provide scope for deploying larger heavy earth-moving machines, revive local hard coke manufacturing units, and boost the local economy. The successful implementation of the plan would also generate substantive surplus for BCCL.