Union Minister of Coal and Mines Shri Pralhad Joshi on 24 November, 2022, visited the Jhanjra underground mine of Eastern Coalfields Limited.

ECL is about 225 metres deep a subsidiary of Coal India, which is also the country’s highest producing underground mine, at an annual production capacity of 3.5 million tonnes. It produced 45 million tonnes of coal in 2021-22.

There, he interacted with coal mine workers, besides inaugurating the Jhanjhara expansion project, raising its capacity to 5 million tonnes.

He directed the officers of the Eastern Coalfields Ltd to work for achieving the production target of 50 MT during the current fiscal to meet the energy requirement of the country, a statement said.

On the second day of his two-day visit to the ECL areas, Joshi inaugurated several infrastructure projects that would help increase coal loading capacity and control the pollution caused by coal production and dispatch, the statement said.

The minister also visited the View Point of Sonepur Bazari opencast project. He inspected the project and held a review meeting with officials.

The Sonepur Bazari opencast mine of ESL has a capacity of producing 12 MTPA of coal. The Minister directed concerned officials to increase the production from 35,000 tonnes to 45,000 tonnes per day.

Production capacity has been increased by more than 2 million tonnes per year to further boost coal production from the mine. Two low height continuous miners are to be introduced.

Moreover, a Coal Handling Plant of 5 MTY capacity and a Railway Corridor are under construction for increasing coal off take.

Pralhad Joshi became India’s first Union Coal Minister to visit the Jhanjra mine of Eastern Coalfields.

Saluting the grit and hard work of coal miners, the Minister said he travelled 1.5 km inside the Jhanjra underground mining to reach a depth of 225 meters below ground level and have a first hand experience of difficult conditions faced on a daily basis by coal warriors.

Output Overview

During FY22, ESL’s coal production stood at 32.428 million tonnes (MT), with 8.996 MT from underground mines and 23.432 MT from opencast mines, with a negative growth of 27.944 per cent over FY21.

A subsidiary of Coal India (CIL), ESL operates in West Bengal and Jharkhand with 14 operating areas and 80 working mines. Of this, 48 are underground mines, 23 opencast mines and 9 are mixed mines. As of April 2021, ECL had a coal reserve of 54.365 Billion Tonne in its command areas (33.077 billion tonne in West Bengal and 21.288 billion tonne in Jharkhand).