Nagpur | Aug 21, 2017: By making use of water from mines, the Western Coalfields Limited (WCL) has started production of safe drinking water and marketing it under the brand name of 'Coal Neer'. The water otherwise would have gone waste and also polluted water bodies.

Coal and power minister Piyush Goyal inaugurated the WCL's Coal Neer and Reverse Osmosis (RO) Water Purification Project at Patansawangi underground coal mine, near the city. WCL chairman-cum-managing director Rajiv Ranjan Mishra presented a bottle of Coal Neer to Goyal who launched the project online during his visit to the city on August 14.

General manager of WCL Nagpur Area, DM Gokhale told TOI that 1.50-2 lakh villagers from 12-15 villages in a radius of around 10km from Patansawangi will benefit from the project. "The plant has a capacity to treat 10,000 litres/hour water. The mine is 200 metre deep and so holds a lot of water," he said.

10 hydrant points have been set up at the plant, said Gokhale. "We asked gram panchayats to come and get collect treated water from the plant. Also, we are going to engage Patansaongi Co-operative Employees Society of WCL staffers to ensure water supply to the villagers," he said.

Gokhale added that water bottles are being used for in-house purposes of Nagpur Area as of now. "Soon we will be installing an automatic bottling plant. Then we will be able to supply the water bottles to our head office and other areas," he said.

The WCL is producing the water bottle at a small cost of 40 paise per bottle so sales to public too would be cheap.

As per norms, the WCL has to ensure zero discharge as mine water contaminates water bodies. Therefore, the WCL started taking initiatives for treating the mine water for utilization.

The coal-producer first came up with a project to treat mine water with sedimentation tank system. Water is being supplied to three areas — Borgaon, Bhanegaon and Pipla — in the district for irrigation purposes under the system. Around 40,000 acres of land is being irrigated with the water in these three areas as of now.

The WCL has also installed an RO Water Purification Plant with capacity of 1,000 litres per hour at Neelgaon near the Saoner mines. Treated water is being supplied to around 2,500 villagers.

The WCL is now planning to install similar plants at its 10 housing colonies in the district. The system saves raw drinking water, prevents pollution of water bodies, cuts down cost of WCL in supplying drinking water and complies with the environment norms of zero discharge from coal mines.

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