Coal producing states and companies has been asked to take appropriate steps to curb and check the theft of coal. In a statement, the Ministry of Coal said, ‘law and order was a state subject and state/district administrations were requested to take necessary action to stop or curb the theft and black marketing of coal.
It stated that companies, on their part, had taken various measures to prevent the theft of the fuel. These included establishing check posts at vulnerable points, wall fencing, lighting arrangements and deployment of armed guards round-the-clock around the coal dumping yards. Regular patrolling in and around the mines was being done, including the Over Burden dumps. Armed guards had been deployed at Railway sidings. The company managements are also interacting and liaisoning with District Officials at regular intervals and holding meetings with District Collector & District Administration every month.
Further, to check theft, challans for coal transportation by trucks outside the district were issued after fixing hologram and putting signatures of authorized officials of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). Regular FIRs were lodged by the Management of the collieries and CISF with local police stations against the theft of coal. A close watch on the activities of criminals is being maintained by CISF. In a phased manner, managements had been taking action for filling/dozing/scaling/blasting of the old/abandoned exposed coalfaces.
The statement comes at a time when the country is facing an acute shortage of coal. It is estimated that the country requires an additional 142 million tonnes of coal to meet its domestic demand. Recently there have been reports of widespread theft and illegal mining activity at Coal India (CIL) assets. CIL accounts for 80% of production of coal in the country.
As majority of mines are operated by Coal India’s subsidiaries like Central Coalfields, Bharart Coking Coal, Mahanadi Coalfileds and Eastern Coalfields in Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal have reported several such incidents of theft and illegal mining. Early this month, Eastern Coalfields also said that illegal mining and increased mafia operations had caused them a loss of about Rs 30 crore as production had been delayed at many of its mines.
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