Upset with power crisis witnessed by the State of Jharkhand despite its abundant reserves of coal, Rajya Sabha member from Jharkhand Parimal Nathwani raised series of questions in the Upper House on Monday about the coal mines and coal reserves.
In accordance with the information tabled in the House, Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (in-charge) of coal, power and new and renewable energy, the total number of 566 coal mines were in operation in the country as on March 31, 2014; out of which 177 coal mines were in operation in Jharkhand alone.
Some of the mines included in this figure were mines under construction and some non-producing but not closed mines also, as per the statement. According to the Minister’s statement, the State of Jharkhand has the maximum reserves of coal. As on April 1, 2014, the total reserves of coal in Jharkhand is 80,716 million tonnes which is the highest in India.
During the year 2013-14, the total coal extracted from different coal fields in the country was 565.64 million tons, the statement added.
Nathwani wanted to know through another set of questions the reasons for promoting imports of coal rather than making use of domestic coal for power generation in the country. The Minister stated in response that the import of coal was planned to meet the requirement of power sector in order to address the gap between domestic availability of coals and the projected demand.
He also asked whether it was a fact that imported coal generated less fly-ash than the domestic coal and that being the sole reason to imports to which the minister said no. The Minister also accepted that there was a scope to increase mining from reserves presently being tapped and even from the untapped reserves.