BCCl Master plan to extinguish coal mines fire

New Delhi, May 6: The government has prepared a master plan for controlling the coal mines fire at Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL)in Jharkhand.

Official sources said this was to deal with the problems of fire, subsidence and rehabilitation in the leasehold area of BCCL.

Under the plan, the existing 67 numbers of fire is proposed to be controlled or extinguished by implementing 45 fire projects in 12 years with a total investment of Rs 2152.51 crore.

A total of 595 sites are proposed to be resettled and the number of houses to be rehabilitated has been estimated at 98314.

These include BCCL houses-44155, non-BCCL houses(Authorised Private)-29444, un-authorised (Encroachers)-23847 and Others (religious structures, schools, Post office etc.) -868.

The houses from the endangered area are proposed to be rehabilitated in 4 to 5 satellite townships in non coal bearing areas along the periphery of Jharia Coalfield. The total investment has been estimated at Rs 4185.94 crore to be spent in 12 years time.

The rehabilitation of BCCL houses would be the responsibility of BCCL, while that of non-BCCL houses from the endangered areas will be the responsibility of the Jharkhand government and necessary funds will be made available to it by BCCL.

The Jharia Rehabilitation and Development Authority (JRDA) has been constituted by the state government under the Chairmanship of Commissioner North Chotanagpur for rehabilitation of non-BCCL houses. A Demonstration Scheme for shifting of 3100 non-BCCL houses (un-authorized) is under implementation at Belgoria mouza where work is in progress for which a total fund of Rs 16.4 crore has already been made available to JRDA till date.

BCCL reported an accident due to caving-in of land subsidence, in which two houses collapsed at Kusunda Collieries area on March 15, this year, leaving ten dead and five injured. All the victims belonged to families of two BCCL employees. This subsidence occurred in old and abandoned mined out area, the sources added.

UNI