Minister of Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs Shri Pralhad Joshi has informed that Details of closed/abandoned/discontinued coal mines in the country are as under:
| Name of the Company | Number of closed/abandoned/ discontinued mines
(as on 1.4.2021) |
| CIL Mines | |
| ECL | 84 |
| BCCL | 42 |
| CCL | 29 |
| NCL | 1 |
| WCL | 56 |
| SECL | 66 |
| MCL | 2 |
| NEC | 4 |
| SCCL Mines | |
| SCCL | 9 |
These mines have been closed/abandoned/discontinued due to depletion of reserve, spontaneous heating, safety reasons, inundation, adverse techno-economics, financial losses, adverse geo-mining conditions, surface constraints, conversion to opencast mine, etc.
The abandoned quarries of CIL are used for the following purposes:
- Dumping /Filling of fly ash in to the worked out area for suitable reclamation.
- Development of eco and mine tourism parks
- Afforestation
- Pisciculture
- Source to supply of drinking water and other domestic use.
- Generation of sand from overburden of opencast mines at few places
CIL is also exploring the possibilities to develop ground mounted solar power projects in its suitable decoaled area.
SCCL is taking up the following mine closure activities in these mines:
- Extensive Plantation on overburden dumps and vacant lands as part of post closure reclamation works.
- Developing agricultural fields, Eco-parks, fruit bearing and vegetable crops for the benefit of surrounding community.
- Creating water bodies in the final voids which augment ground water recharge and also serve as source of water for agriculture, Dorli OC I, Dorli OC II.
- It is proposed to fill the voids of Medipalli OCP after mine closure by fly ash generated from NTPC / TSTPS Project of Telangana State.