Coalfields: distribution, problems and the future of coal

Detail

1. Two kinds of coal by geological age

• Gondwana coal: coal formed about 200–250 million years ago in old river basins on the Peninsular plateau. It makes up almost all of India's coal. It is found in the Damodar, Sone, Mahanadi, Godavari and Wardha valleys.
• Tertiary coal: younger coal, about 15–60 million years old. It is found in the north-east (Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland). It is small in amount and has a lot of sulphur in it.
• Coal reserves distribution (meaning): the pattern of where coal lies underground. In India, over 97 per cent of reserves lie in the Damodar, Sone, Mahanadi and Godavari valleys (Class 12). Class 10 adds the Wardha valley.

2. Where the reserves are (state ranking)

• India's total coal resource was 378.21 billion tonnes as on 1 April 2023 (National Coal Inventory, prepared by GSI) [3].
• The top three states are:

Rank	State	Coal resource (1 April 2023)	Main fields
1	Odisha	94.52 billion tonnes [3]	Talcher, Ib valley/Rampur
2	Jharkhand	87.84 billion tonnes [3]	Jharia, Bokaro, Giridih, Karanpura
3	Chhattisgarh	80.77 billion tonnes [3]	Korba, Hasdeo Arand

• Together these three states hold about 263 billion tonnes, close to 70 per cent of the national total (2023) [3].
• Trap: Jharkhand has the largest single coalfield (Jharia), but Odisha has the largest reserves.

3. Damodar valley coalfields (Jharkhand–West Bengal belt)

• Damodar river: it rises in the Chota Nagpur plateau (Palamu–Latehar area, Jharkhand) and flows east into West Bengal. There it joins the Hooghly. Its old name is the "Sorrow of Bengal" because of its floods. Its valley is a rift valley, a long strip of land that sank between faults, and coal was preserved in it.
• Jharia coalfield (Dhanbad district, Jharkhand):
• It is the largest coalfield in India.
• It is the main source of coking coal, meaning coal that turns into hard, porous coke when heated without air. Coke is needed to smelt iron ore in a blast furnace.

• It supplies steel plants at Bokaro, Durgapur, Burnpur and Jamshedpur.

• Raniganj coalfield (Paschim Bardhaman district, West Bengal):

• It is the second largest and the oldest coalfield. Mining began here in 1774.

• It feeds the Durgapur–Asansol industrial belt.

• Other Damodar fields: Bokaro, Giridih, Karanpura (all in Jharkhand).

4. Other major coalfields

Valley / belt	Coalfield	State	Key point
Sone valley	Singrauli	Madhya Pradesh–Uttar Pradesh border	Called the "energy capital". It has many pithead plants (power plants built right at the mine), such as NTPC Vindhyachal
Mahanadi valley	Korba	Chhattisgarh	Lies on the Hasdeo river, a tributary of the Mahanadi. It has large thermal plants
Mahanadi valley	Talcher	Odisha	Lies in the Brahmani river basin
Mahanadi valley	Ib valley / Rampur	Odisha	Lies on the Ib river, a tributary of the Mahanadi
Wardha valley	Chanda–Wardha, Kamptee, Bander	Maharashtra	Near Nagpur and Chandrapur
Godavari valley	Singareni	Telangana	Mined by Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL)
Godavari valley	Pandur	Andhra Pradesh	Southern end of the Gondwana belt

• Map order, roughly east to west: Raniganj → Jharia → Bokaro → Karanpura → Singrauli.
• Map order, north to south in the peninsula: Korba → Talcher → Chanda–Wardha → Singareni.

5. Why steel and power plants sit on coalfields

• Coal is bulky and loses weight when it is used:
• Coal burns to ash, so the product weighs far less than the raw material.
• Carrying heavy coal over long distances is costly.

• So it is cheaper to build the plant at the mine and send out steel or electricity instead.

• Result: steel mills and thermal plants (plants that make electricity by burning coal) crowd onto the north-eastern plateau of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal.

• Map exercise: the coalfields follow the river valleys of the north-eastern plateau. The Damodar, Sone, Mahanadi, Godavari and Wardha form clear lines of coal-based industry.

6. Production today (beyond NCERT)

• Coal production crossed 1 billion tonnes in 2024-25. It reached 1,047.57 million tonnes (provisional), up from 997.83 million tonnes in 2023-24. That is growth of 4.99 per cent [2].
• Coal India Ltd produced 781.07 million tonnes in 2024-25, about three-quarters of the total [2].
• Commercial and captive mines produced 197.50 million tonnes in 2024-25, up 28.11 per cent [2]. Captive mines are mines run by a company to feed its own plant.
• Coal dispatch, meaning coal sent out from the mines, was 1,024.99 million tonnes in 2024-25 (provisional) [2].
• Commercial coal-block auctions began in 2020. Private firms can now mine coal and sell it on the open market, not only for their own use.
• Coal still produces about three-quarters of India's electricity, even as the country works towards the 500 GW non-fossil capacity target for 2030.

7. Problems of coal mining

(a) Jharia: fire and sinking land

• Underground fires have burnt under Jharia since about 1916:
• Coal seams (layers of coal) touch air through old mine workings.
• The coal slowly oxidises, heats up and catches fire on its own.

• The fire eats the coal beneath the ground, so the surface cracks and sinks. This sinking is called land subsidence.

• Jharia Master Plan (first approved in 2009) moves people out of the fire and subsidence zones.

• Revised Jharia Master Plan (approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 25 June 2025) [4]:
• Total outlay of ₹5,940.47 crore [4].
• Fire, subsidence and rehabilitation are handled phase by phase, starting with the most vulnerable sites [4].
• Each family gets a livelihood grant of ₹1 lakh and access to credit of up to ₹3 lakh. This applies to both Legal Title Holder and Non-Legal Title Holder families [4].
• A Jharia Alternative Livelihoods Rehabilitation Fund will be set up. Roads, water, sewerage, schools and hospitals will be built at the resettlement sites [4].

(b) Hazards for miners (Class 10 "Hazards of Mining")

• Unsafe pits: roofs can collapse and mines can flood.
• Methane explosions: methane gas collects in coal mines and can explode.
• Pulmonary (lung) disease: miners breathe in coal dust. This causes coal workers' pneumoconiosis, often called "black lung".
• Water and land contamination: mine waste and acid water pollute rivers and farmland.

(c) Hasdeo Arand: coal versus forest

• Hasdeo Arand coalfield lies in north Chhattisgarh, in the upper catchment of the Hasdeo river, a tributary of the Mahanadi.
• It sits under one of central India's largest stretches of dense sal forest.
• It is an elephant corridor, a strip of forest that elephants use to move between habitats.
• It is home to Gond Adivasi villages, which depend on the forest.
• Coal blocks given to Rajasthan's state power utility for mining have faced long protests over tree felling, gram sabha consent and loss of the corridor.

8. Future of coal: cleaner uses (beyond NCERT)

• Coal-bed methane (CBM): natural gas (mostly methane) that is trapped in coal seams.
• It is taken out by drilling wells and pumping out water, which lowers the pressure so the gas flows out.
• India's first commercial CBM output came from Raniganj in 2007.
• Other CBM blocks lie in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

• Benefit: it uses a fuel that would otherwise escape, and it makes mines safer by cutting methane build-up.

• Coal gasification: coal is reacted with a controlled amount of oxygen and steam to make syngas, a fuel gas made of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

• Syngas can then be turned into fertilisers (urea, ammonia), methanol, chemicals, hydrogen and gas for Direct Reduced Iron (DRI).
• The Coal Gasification Mission was launched in 2020. Its aim is to gasify 100 million tonnes of coal by 2030 [5].
• A ₹8,500 crore financial incentive scheme began in January 2024 [5]. It aims to cut imports of urea, natural gas, ethanol and coking coal [5].

• March 2026: the foundation stones were laid for two coal gasification plants at Bhadrawati, Chandrapur (Maharashtra). One will make DRI and the other ammonium nitrate and hydrogen. They are among seven projects chosen for the incentive [5].

• The coal belt of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha will be hit hardest when coal use falls. This just transition question (moving away from coal fairly, so that workers and regions are not left behind) is covered in Section 11.

Prelims Hooks

• Largest coalfield and main coking-coal source: Jharia (Dhanbad, Jharkhand). Oldest coalfield: Raniganj (West Bengal), mined since 1774.
• Largest coal reserves by state (1 April 2023): Odisha > Jharkhand > Chhattisgarh [3]. Do not confuse "largest coalfield" (Jharia) with "largest reserves" (Odisha).
• "Energy capital" of India: Singrauli (Madhya Pradesh–Uttar Pradesh border, Sone valley). NTPC Vindhyachal is located there.
• Coalfield–state pairs: Talcher and Ib valley – Odisha; Korba – Chhattisgarh; Kamptee, Bander and Chanda–Wardha – Maharashtra; Singareni – Telangana; Pandur – Andhra Pradesh; Karanpura, Bokaro and Giridih – Jharkhand.
• Valley trap: over 97 per cent of reserves lie in the Damodar, Sone, Mahanadi and Godavari valleys (Class 12). The Wardha is added in Class 10. Tertiary coal is found in the north-east.
• Production crossed 1 billion tonnes in 2024-25 (1,047.57 million tonnes, provisional). Coal India produced 781.07 million tonnes of it [2].
• First commercial coal-bed methane: Raniganj, 2007.
• Coal Gasification Mission: launched 2020, target of 100 million tonnes by 2030 [5].
• Revised Jharia Master Plan: approved 25 June 2025, outlay ₹5,940.47 crore [4].
• Hasdeo Arand: north Chhattisgarh, sal forest, elephant corridor, Gond villages, coal blocks of Rajasthan's state utility.

Mains Points

• Coal and industrial location (GS-I): coal is bulky and loses weight when used, so steel and thermal plants are pulled to the coalfields. This created the Damodar–Sone–Mahanadi industrial belt (Jamshedpur, Bokaro, Durgapur, Singrauli, Korba). It also put the costs of mining, such as pollution and displacement, on mostly tribal regions.
• Environmental and human costs (GS-III): examples are the century-old Jharia fires and subsidence (the revised Master Plan of 2025 costs ₹5,940.47 crore and focuses on livelihoods [4]), miners' lung disease and methane explosions, polluted water and land, and the forest, wildlife and tribal-rights conflict at Hasdeo Arand. Together they show that the true cost of coal is far higher than its price.
• Energy security versus climate (GS-III): production passed 1 billion tonnes in 2024-25 [2] and coal still makes about three-quarters of India's power. Even so, the 500 GW non-fossil target for 2030 needs coal to become cleaner and play a smaller role. The tools for this are coal-bed methane, gasification for fertiliser, chemicals and DRI (100 million tonnes by 2030; ₹8,500 crore incentive [5]) and less import dependence.
• Regional planning: about 70 per cent of reserves lie in Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh [3]. Their state revenues and jobs depend on coal, so a just-transition plan is needed for these states.