New Delhi, 18 April (IANS). South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) on Friday signed an agreement of Rs 7,040 crore with TMC Mineral Resources Private Limited to promote sustainable and environmentally friendly mining practice in the country.
This agreement has been done to implement paste phil technology in coal mining.
SECL is the first government company to make an agreement with TMC Mineral Resources Private Limited.
According to the Ministry of Coal, it is a major step towards sustainable and environmentally friendly mining practice in the country.
Under this agreement, large -scale coal will be produced using paste phil technology in the Singhali underground coal mine located in the Korba region of SECL. Over a period of 25 years, this project is expected to produce about 8.4 million tonnes (84.5 lakh tonnes) coal.
Paste filling is a modern underground mining technology that does not require surface land acquisition. After extracting coal, the empty space caused by mining is filled with a specially prepared paste made of fly ash, overburdons, cement, water and chemicals crushed from opencast mines. This process prevents the collapse of the land and ensures the structural stability of the mine.
This paste uses industrial waste, which is considered environmentally friendly and promotes waste recycling.
The Singhali underground mine was approved for production capacity of 0.24 million tonnes per year in 1989 and began operating in 1993. Currently, the mine has 8.45 million tonnes of extractable reserves of the G-7 grade non-cooking coal. It was developed using a board and pillar method, in which the load hall dumpers (LHD) and the universal drilling machine (UDM) were used for underground operation.
However, the superficial area above the mine is densely populated, with villages, high -tension electrical lines and roads, due to which traditional cave construction technology becomes impractical due to safety and environmental concerns.
Paste Phil technology can now proceed with mining activities in the region without affecting surface infrastructure.
The successful implementation of this technology in Singhali is expected to pave the way to resume operations in other underground mines, where similar land obstacles exist.
-IANS
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