Rajhara Colliery Reopens: CCL's Daltonganj Mine Resumes Production

Daltonganj: The Rajhara open-cast colliery of the Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) will restart production from Saturday.Talking to the media on Friday, Palamu MP Vishnu Dayal Ram said, “The Union state minister for coal and mines, Satish Chandra Dubey, will inaugurate the restarting of this colliery.

”The open-cast colliery, which existed before India’s independence, remained shut when it was inundated in 2010. Its shovel was submerged, leading to serious safety concerns. The colliery started underground mining way back in 1842. In 1991, it abandoned underground mining, and open-cast mining started.“Invoking Sections 23(3) of the Mines Act 1952, the Director General of Mines Safety (DGMS) had ceased operation of the colliery,” the MP said.In 2015, the DGMS ordered partial mining of the coal mine, but with a rider that no mining should be done during the monsoon season between June 15 and October 31 every year.“However, this opencast colliery will operate normally from January 17, with caution that no water should enter,” the MP said.The Rajhara colliery has a stock of 4.9 million tonnes of high-grade G9 coal, which is a non-coking thermal coal. Its production capacity per annum is 0.30 million tonnes. The colliery has environmental clearance till February 2037. However, its consent to operate (CTO) is valid only up to March 2026. “Efforts are on to get a renewal of the CTO,” the MP informed.Once operational, a few thousand people would get direct employment, while indirect employment would be much higher, sources said.