KOLKATA | Jan 14, 2015: Dumper, shovels and pay-loaders are being used on a large scale to mine coal. This is nothing new in mining world, but these set of hi-tech machinery are now being used to extract coal from areas that do not belong to Coal India albeit illegally.

"Illegal mining has seen a major transformation in the last few years. Illegal miners are extracting coal either from abandoned mines in a mechanised way which is of course a safety hazard and are also using the same set of equipment to extract coal from areas that hold coal but do not fall under Coal India's command area. We cannot do anything about coal being illegally mined from areas that do not fall in our command area," a senior Coal India official said.

"It is also next to impossible to keep a vigil on abandoned mines since after a mine is shut down all major infrastructure is removed from the location and we lack the manpower to guard such abandoned mines. However, there is a huge safety issue involved. Mines are abandoned mostly because, either it is no more safe or have exhausted the extractable volume of coal. Using heavy machinery in those mines pose a risk," he said.

"Mining on abandoned mines does not have any viable techni cal solution as of now. However, mining on other areas that do not belong to Coal India could be taken up, however, it is a state and a central subject and the governments need to take a stand," a senior CIL official said."The illegal miners may be using hi-tech machinery but they grossly lack safety features which necessarily needs to be undertaken under mining conditions. Accidents could involve being crushed by such machines or pits collapsing on workers while they are underground. It is a potential threat to lives," he said.

In fact, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee requested the central power minister Piyush Goyal to prepare a scheme for these illegal miner."Coal India could adopt these mines and the workers could be given proper jobs," she had said. Piyush Goyal, said: "The Centre along with Coal India will look into the issue and work out a package that could be adopted."

Coal cannot be mined and sold commercially by anybody other than Coal India as of now. Thus, whatever is being mined is not only illegal, the state is also losing a royalty which is as high as 25% of the price of coal for every ton of coal produced.

"The coal mined from such pits are loaded on trucks and sold to small players with no coal supply contracts from Coal India," the CIL official said.

(Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/)