Eyeing to generate employment opportunities ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections, the West Bengal government approached the Union government seeking technical and financial support in carrying out underground coal gasification (UCG) in a portion of Deocha-Pachami coal reserve in Birbhum district where the coal-mining is not economically feasible.
The Bengal government has also decided to start mining operations from the first week of February.
“We have approached the Ministry of coal seeking assistance for extracting a portion of the coal by following the UCG model. If we receive a nod from the Centre, work will be carried out in a war footing basis,” said a senior official at Nabanna, the state secretariat.
The state’s desperation to keep the Deocha-Pachami project rolling as early as possible is said to be a clear hint that the Mamata Banerjee's government is leaving no stone unturned to make the coal project a “game changer” in the arena of employment generation before the next year’s Assembly polls.
On several occasions, Mamata said in public rallies that how the coal project spread over 1,000 acres would generate employment for thousands of people living in industry-starved Bengal.
UCG, a new concept in India, is a process through which underground coal-mining, which is not financially feasible financially, is converted into usable gas by injecting steam and oxidants into the coal steam and igniting it. The resulting gases include valuable gases such as methane, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. The gases are utilised to produce chemical feedstock for fuel, explosives, fertilizer and other industrial applications.
In Deocha-Pachami, the UCG project is being planned where the basalt overhead is more than 500 meters thick and mining of coal is not economically viable.
According to a survey of the coal block, the Deocha-Pachami has a reserve of 1200 million metric tons of coal and of the reserve, 30 per cent could not be extracted through open-cast mining. Another 400 million metric tons can be extracted through underground mining. The UCG is being planned in an area where mining is not feasible.
Other than pursuing the UCG with the Centre, the state government will lay stress on extracting coal through opencast mining on 376 acres in the first phase of the project.
Since the coal block is located in an area that used to be Maoists’ hotbed one-and-half-decade ago, the state government is also facing the challenges of rehabilitation of the inhabitants. Different organisations, under the banner of different rights bodies, are organizing the locals to put up resistance.
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