Coal mining in India

Coal reserves in BTUs as of 2009

Coal mining in India has a long history of commercial exploitation covering nearly 220 years starting in 1774 with John Sumner and Suetonius Grant Heatly of the East India Company in the Raniganj Coalfield along the Western bank of river Damodar. However, for about a century the growth of Indian coal mining remained sluggish for want of demand but the introduction of steam locomotives in 1853 gave a fillip to it. Within a short span, production rose to an annual average of 1 million tonne (mt) and India could produce 6.12 mts. per year by 1900 and 18 mts per year by 1920. The production got a sudden boost from the First World War but went through a slump in the early thirties. The production reached a level of 29 mts. by 1942 and 30 mts. by 1946.

With the advent of Independence, the country embarked upon the 5-year development plans. At the beginning of the 1st Plan, annual production went up to 33 mts. During the 1st Plan period itself, the need for increasing coal production efficiently by systematic and scientific development of the coal industry was being felt. Setting up of the National Coal Development Corporation (NCDC), a Government of India Undertaking in 1956 with the collieries owned by the railways as its nucleus was the first major step towards planned development of Indian Coal Industry. Along with the Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. (SCCL) which was already in operation since 1945 and which became a Government company under the control of Government of Andhra Pradesh in 1956, India thus had two Government coal companies in the fifties. SCCL is now a joint undertaking of Government of Andhra Pradesh and Government of India sharing its equity in 51:49 ratio.

Role of Women in Indian Coal Mines

Women played a key role in building the coal industry in India since its early days. They were part of a family unit of labour and worked as partners, usually in loading jobs in shallow undergropund mines with a male coal cutter, usually a husband, a father or a brother. The need to fuel the urban–industrial engine from mid-nineteenth century onwards encouraged the British Raj to expand coal mining in Raniganj and Jharia in undivided Bengal. In Giridih, Jharia and Raniganj collieries about 10 per cent of the labourers were Santhals and Kols, around 60 per cent from ‘semi-Hinduised’ castes such as Bauris, Bagdis, Chamars, Telis, Turis, Musahars and Jolhas (weavers) and the rest were Mohammedans (Chief Inspector of Mines Report, 1902). Theselocal communities became known to colonial administrators as ‘hereditary miners’ or ‘traditional coal cutters’. In an inspection report, Stonier (1902: 2) observed: ‘[T]he bauris have cut coal for so long a time—probably for several generations—that they now consider coal cutting to be a caste-occupation.’ Of the various caste groups, the Bauris were the first to bring their women into the collieries followed later by Santhals, Kols, Koras and Bhuinyas. Upper caste Hindu women stayed away from the collieries and were largely confined to their homes. Women worked in early coal mines as shale-pickers and breakers, wagon and truck loaders, helpers in construction, pellet makers, brick carriers and sweepers. Women in collieries were initially employed as ‘gin girls’ (from the term ‘engine’), who had the responsibility of winding the engines to bring to surface the coal baskets from the pits, but they preferred to work in company of other women. Women also performed other surface and underground work when the mechanical system of lifting coal from shallow shafts was phased out (see Lahiri-Dutt 2010; 2006; 1999).

Nationalisation of coal mines

Right from its genesis, the commercial coal mining in modern times in India has been dictated by the needs of the domestic consumption. India’s has abundant domestic reserves of coal. Most of these are in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.^[1] On account of the growing needs of the steel industry, a thrust had to be given on systematic exploitation of coking coal reserves in Jharia Coalfield. Adequate capital investment to meet the burgeoning energy needs of the country was not forthcoming from the private coal mine owners. Unscientific mining practices adopted by some of them and poor working conditions of labour in some of the private coal mines became matters of concern for the Government. On account of these reasons, the Central Government took a decision to nationalise the private coal mines. The nationalisation was done in two phases, the first with the coking coal mines in 1971-72 and then with the non-coking coal mines in 1973. In October, 1971, the Coking Coal Mines (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1971 provided for taking over in public interest of the management of coking coal mines and coke oven plants pending nationalisation. This was followed by the Coking Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, 1972 under which the coking coal mines and the coke oven plants other than those with the Tata Iron & Steel Company Limited and Indian Iron & Steel Company Limited, were nationalised on 1.5.1972 and brought under the Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a new Central Government Undertaking. Another enactment, namely the Coal Mines (Taking Over of Management) Act, 1973, extended the right of the Government of India to take over the management of the coking and non-coking coal mines in seven States including the coking coal mines taken over in 1971. This was followed by the nationalisation of all these mines on 1.5.1973 with the enactment of the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, 1973 which now is the piece of Central legislation determining the eligibility of coal mining in India.^[2]

References

1. ^ http://www.krishnaninc.com/Power_India_01.pdf
2. ^ http://www.coalindia.in/Company.aspx?tab=4&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

See also

1. 1965 Dhanbad coal mine disaster
2. Coal Mining & Mistris of Kutch
3. Mafia raj

1. ^ http://www.krishnaninc.com/Power_India_01.pdf
2. ^ http://www.coalindia.in/Company.aspx?tab=4&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Important resources: Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala 2006. Coal mining industry at the crossroads: Towards a coal policy in liberalising India, November 2007, Working Paper for Australia South Asia Research Centre, Canberra. Available from

http://rspas.anu.edu.au/economics/asarc/publications.php?searchterm=2006

Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala and Prasun Kumar Gangopadhyaya Subsurface coalfires in the Raniganj Coalbelt: Investigating their causes and assessing human impacts, Resources, Energy and Development, 2007, 4(1): 71-87. Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala 2007. Illegal coal mining in eastern India: Rethinking legitimacy and limits of justice, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLII, No. 49, December 8-14, pp. 57-67. Reprinted in 2009 as a chapter in Sanam Roohi and Ranabir Samaddar (eds) Key Texts on Social Justice in India: State of Justice in India, Issues of Social Justice, Sage, 294-323. Gangopadhyay, Prasun Kumar, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt and Kanika Saha 2006. Application of remote sensing to identify coal fires in the Raniganj coalbelt, India, International Journal of Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 8 (3), p.188-195.