The Ministry of Coal has directed CMPDI to expedite the regional and detailed exploration in the country so as to identify the best of the properties for coal exploitation in the near future. A scheme of Exploration in under formulation in consultation with GSI to identify such areas in the country.
It has also been directed to intensively use the modern technologies of exploration like Gravity, Electrical-Resistivity, Magnetic, and Seismic survey, to reduce the dependence on time-consuming process of drilling. CMPDI is in the process of looking for such technologies and routinizing it in the process of exploration.
In the month of April 2017, a Vendors’ meet was organized for motivating the private agencies engaged in exploration of coal for use of such technologies available in other sectors of mineral exploration. It has come out that the application of technologies will be area specific depending on nature and occurrence of coal seams available in specific areas and suitability of technologies will be selected, accordingly.
CMPDI, the Mini-Ratna subsidiary of the Maharatna company Coal India limited, has been the premier organization in exploration in coal and rendering consultancy services in the field of mine and infra-structural planning over the years.
In the last 3 years, CMPDI has added a total of 12 hi-tech drills to enhance the departmental drilling capacity from 3.25 lakh meter in 2013-14 to 4.42 lakh meter in 2016-17.The overall achievement of exploratory drilling by CMPDI has increased from 6.97 lakh metre in 2013-14 to 11.26 lakh metre in the year 2016-17 with a cumulative annualized growth rate of over 17 per cent.