Question : Environmental Restoration of Coal Mines

(a) whether a framework has been established for the environmental restoration of coal mines to their pre-mining status, after the completion of mining;

(b) if so, the details and the results thereof;

(c) the details of mines where afforestation is to be carried out by the Coal India Limited and other mining companies, State-wise; and

(d) the total land area to be reforested and the percentage division to be maintained between dense forest plantations and other plantations in the above stated mines of the country?
ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) IN THE MINISTRY OF COAL, POWER AND NEW AND RENEWABLE ENERGY (SHRI PIYUSH GOYAL)

(a) & (b): As per Ministry of Coal, Govt. of India, letter of even no. dated 27th August 2009 regarding Guidelines for preparation of Mine Closure plan and modified Guidelines vide letter of even number dated 8th September 2009, 11th January 2012, 25th April 2012 and 7th January 2013, all coal mining operations in India shall henceforth be governed as per these modified guidelines listed in the Annexure to the letter, including the preparation of Mine Closure Plans (MCPs), which shall be incorporated in the Project Report / Mining Plan henceforth, for new and existing mines.

As per the above guideline, 424 Mine Closure Plans were prepared and approved by the respective CIL subsidiary company board up to 30.06.2015 for implementation of the same. Land being major component of environment, the restoration ( reclamation) of mined out lands in best possible way to their pre-mining status has been incorporated in the Mine Closure Plans of the opencast coal mines on CIL.

As per the provisions of approved Project Reports / Mine Plans / Mine Closure Plans of the mines of CIL, biological reclamation / plantation of the mined out areas has been carried out through afforestation. The company and state wise land area reforested / planted as informed by CIL is as follows:

Name of Subsidiary Company Operates in the State/s Area Reclaimed and Trees Planted (No.)
No. Area(Ha.)
Eastern Coalfields Ltd. West Bengal & Jharkhand 6994800 2804.89
Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. Jharkhand 4118609 3369.32
Central Coalfields Ltd. Jharkhand 7762505 4839.72
Northern Coalfields Ltd. Madhya Pradesh & Uttar Pradesh 16189974 5565.92
Western Coalfields Ltd. Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh 18269550 6621.33
South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. Chhattisgarh & Madhya Pradesh 23141643 9248.88
Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd. Odisha 4496401 2270.70
North Eastern Coalfoelds Assam 1703509 223.87
Total CIL 8267699 34944.63

(c) & (d): All 430 mines of which 227 are underground, 175 opencast and 28 mixed mines of CIL situated in the states stated in the table above have reforestation component as per the approved Mine Closure Plans and as per the provision of Forest Conservation Act 1980.
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