Main reasons adversely affecting coal production in the country are delays in land acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) issues; environmental and forestry clearances; lack of rail evacuation facilities and poor law & Order situation in some areas. Coal companies are adopting appropriate technologies for extraction of coal from their mines depending upon specific geo-mining conditions of the area.
There is a continuous effort to upgrade the technology adopted by coal companies to achieve high production /productivity and safety. At the behest of Government of India, CIL has recently appointed an International Reputed Consultant to study and submit a report on modernization/mechanization of mines of CIL. Besides, in Opencast mining, CIL is adopting the contemporary Technology using draglines, shovel-dumper combination, surface miners etc. as per the site specific geo-mining conditions. Mega opencast projects are now being planned with higher size of equipments. Operators Independent Truck Despatch System (OITDS) has also been introduced in several opencast mines for further improvement in productivity.
In case of underground mines, intermediate technologies deploying Load Haul Dumpers/ Side Discharge Loaders (LHD/SDLs) have been introduced almost in all the mines of CIL. However some manual operations still exist. Continuous Miner Technology has already been introduced successfully in a few underground mines where geo-technical conditions are amenable.
In addition to the above, for adopting state of art technology in the underground mines, the following steps are taken/ proposed to be taken in Coal India Limited (CIL):
· While planning an underground mine, the preference is given to mass production technology by deployment of Continuous Miners (CMs), Longwall Technology. In case it is not feasible, mine is planned with Side Discharged Loaders (SDL)/ Load Haul Dumpers (LHDs).
· To extract coal from underlying coal seams in the highwall of a surface Coal Mine, which has reached the finalhighwall position due to un-economical stripping ratio or due to local surface constraints which limits further surface mining operation, highwall mining method is also adopted.
· No mine is presently being planned with manual mining methods. Manual mines are being phased out/converted into intermediate technology mines i.e. with SDL/LHDs.
· For increasing the mechanization in the underground mines, it is planned to increase the number of coal wining machines substantially, especially Continues Miners (CMs).
· At present total 7 numbers of Continuous mines are operating in 7 underground mines of Coal India Limited having total planned capacity of 2.835 Mty. 20 more underground mines have been identified where total 25 continuous miners are envisaged to be introduced in near future with likely capacity addition of 11.51 Mty.
· Work orders have already been issued to Mine Developer Operators (MDOs) to operate 5 (five) mines (Jhanjrain ECL, Kapuria, Moonidih (both XV & XVI seam), and Muraidih in BCCL) by longwall technology. Likely capacity addition from these mines is 8.9 Mty.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Coal, Shri Pratik Prakash Bapu Patil in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.