Abhijeet Group plans green coal mining in Jharkhand

RANCHI - The Abhijeet Group, which has tied up with a Canada-based company, is seeking to bag a mining contract in Jharkhand’s Ramgarh district where it plans to introduce an environment-friendly and economic method of coal extraction called Energy Coal Gasification Technology or UCG, a company official said.

The Coal Mining and Planning Development of India (CMPDI), an undertaking of Coal India Limited (CIL), had sought expression of interest from companies for UCG for the Kaitha coal block situated in Ramgarh district.

“We are making efforts to get the coal block for UCG as we are the first Indian company having this technology for commercial purpose. We have tied up with Ergo Energy Technology Inc of Canada which has expertise in commercial utilization of UCG,” A.K. Srivastav, director Abhijeet Group, told IANS. He was in Ranchi to meet CMPDI officials to get the coal block.

Under UCG technology, the coal which cannot be extracted after a certain depth is utilised and used for commercial purposes for the power and steel sector.

According to Srivastav, “In India only 21 percent reserve of coal is extractable by the present mining technologies, and this way coal reserves of around 75 million tonnes cannot be extracted as they are below 300 metres. Under UCG technology, the coal mining cost reduces by 37 percent.”

He said: “If we get the coal block then Abhijeet Group will be the first company in the country to utilize UCG technology for commercial purposes.”

“The UCG technology offers solution to safe, environment friendly and economic mining of coal reserves which otherwise are not mineable by conventional mining methods,” he added.