New Delhi: Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi on Wednesday chaired a meeting of the ministry's Parliamentary Consultative Committee to discuss the way ahead for the Jharia Master Plan.
Members of Parliament participated in the consultative committee meeting.
During the presentation, it was informed that due to unscientific mining in the pre-nationalisation period, mining areas in the Jharia coalfield in Jharkhand have faced problems of fire and subsidence. Now, these areas fall in the leasehold regions of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL), a Coal India arm.
"As an outcome of WP(C) No. 381/97 filed by late Haradhan Roy, Ex-MP in 1997 in the...Supreme Court of India, a master plan for dealing with fire, subsidence and rehabilitation in Jharia was approved on August 12, 2009, by the Government of India with the implementation period of 10 years and the pre-implementation period of two years.
"The implementation period ended in August 2021," the coal ministry said in a statement.
As a result of fire control measures taken by BCCL, the fire area is continuously decreasing. Currently, as per the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) surveys in 2021, fire sites have been reduced to 18 sites covering 1.8 sq km from the initial 70 sites covering an area of 17.32 sq km.