MINING INDUSTRY

THE MINES ACT-1952

The Mines Act, 1952 contains provisions for measures relating to the health, safety and welfare of workers in the coal, metalliferrous and oil mines. According to the Act, the term mine means any excavation where any operation for the purpose of searching for or obtaining minerals has been or is being carried on and includes all borings, bore holes, oil wells and accessory crude conditioning plants, shafts, opencast workings, conveyors or aerial ropeways, planes, machinery works, railways, tramways, sidings, workshops, power stations, etc. or any premises connected with mining operations and near or in the mining area. The Act prescribes the duties of the owner to manage mines and mining operation and the health and safety in mines. It also prescribes the number of working hours in mines, the minimum wage rates, and other related matters. The Act is administered by the Ministry of Labour and Employment through the Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS). DGMS is the Indian Government regulatory agency for safety in mines and oil-fields. It conducts inspections and inquiries, issues competency tests for the purpose of appointment to various posts in the mines, and organizes seminars/conferences on various aspects of safety of workers. The mission of DGMS is to reduce the risk of occupational diseases and injury to persons employed in mines and to continually improve safety and health standards, practices and performance in the mining industry. INDIAN BUREAU OF MINES (IBM)

The Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) established in 1948, is a multi-disciplinary government organisation under the Department of Mines, Ministry of Mines, engaged in promotion of conservation, scientific development of mineral resources and protection of environment in mines other than coal, petroleum & natural gas, atomic minerals and minor minerals. From a small beginning as a purely advisory body, the IBM has emerged into a premier national organization involved deep into the various aspects of the mineral industry. The current functions of IBM include promoting conservation of mineral resources by way of inspection of mines, geological studies, scrutiny and approval of mining plans and mining schemes, conducting environmental studies and environment related activities, evolving technologies for up gradation of low grade ores and identifying avenues for their utilization, preparation of feasibility reports for mining and beneficiation projects , preparation of minerals maps and National Mineral Inventory of minerals resources; providing technical consultancy services to mineral industry, and functioning as a data bank for mines and minerals, and preparing of technical and statistical publications. Headed by the Controller General, IBM has six technical divisions with its head quarters at Nagpur. There is a Modern Mineral Processing Laboratory and Pilot Plant established with the assistance of United Nations Development Program at Nagpur. IBM has 3 Zonal Offices, 12 Regional Offices and 2 Sub-Regional Offices, 2 Regional Ore Dressing Laboratories and Pilot Plants spread over the Country. The IBM offices are located at Ajmer Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Chennai, Dehra Dun, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jabalpur, Nagpur, Nellore, Ranchi, and Udaipur; and the Pilot plants & Ore Dressing Laboratories at Ajmer, Bangalore, and Nagpur.

USE OF LOW GRADE INDIAN COAL

About 75% of the coal in India is consumed in the power sector. In addition, other industries like steel, cement, fertilizers, chemicals, paper and thousands of medium and small-scale industries are also dependent on coal for their process and energy requirements. In the transport sector, though direct consumption of coal by the Railways is almost negligible.

MINING INDUSTRY

MINING TECHNIQUES

Mining techniques can be divided into two common excavation types: surface mining and sub-surface (underground) mining. Surface mining is much more common, and produces, for example, 85% of minerals (excluding petroleum and natural gas) in the United States, including 98% of metallic ores. Targets are divided into two general categories of materials: placer deposits, consisting of valuable minerals contained within river gravels, beach sands, and other unconsolidated materials; and lode deposits, where valuable minerals are found in veins, in layers, or in mineral grains generally distributed throughout a mass of actual rock. Both types of ore deposit, placer or lode, are mined by both surface and underground methods. Processing of placer ore material consists of gravity-dependent methods of separation, such as sluice boxes. Only minor shaking or washing may be necessary to disaggregate (unclamp) the sands or gravels before processing. Processing of ore from a lode mine, whether it is a surface or subsurface mine, requires that the rock ore be crushed and pulverized before extraction of the valuable minerals begins. After lode ore is crushed, recovery of the valuable minerals is done by one, or a combination of several, mechanical and chemical techniques. Some mining, including much of the rare earth elements and uranium mining, is done by less-common methods, such as in-situ leaching: this technique involves digging neither at the surface nor underground. The extraction of target minerals by this technique requires that they be soluble, e.g., potash, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, sodium sulfate, which dissolve in water. Some minerals, such as copper minerals and uranium oxide, require acid or carbonate solutions to dissolve. Surface mining is done by removing (stripping) surface vegetation, dirt, and if necessary, layers of bedrock in order to reach buried ore deposits. Techniques of surface mining include; Open-pit mining which consists of recovery of materials from an open pit in the ground, quarrying or gathering building materials from an open pit mine, strip mining which consists of stripping surface layers off to reveal ore/seams underneath, and mountaintop removal, commonly associated with coal mining, which involves taking the top of a mountain off to reach ore deposits at depth. Most (but not all) placer deposits, because of their shallowly buried nature, are mined by surface methods. Landfill mining, finally, involves sites where landfills are excavated and processed. Sub-surface mining consists of digging tunnels or shafts into the earth to reach buried ore deposits. Ore, for processing, and waste rock, for disposal, are brought to the surface through the tunnels and shafts. Sub-surface mining can be classified by the type of access shafts used, the extraction method or the technique used to reach the mineral deposit. Drift mining utilizes horizontal access tunnels, slope mining uses diagonally sloping access shafts and shaft mining consists of vertical access shafts. Mining in hard and soft rock formations require different techniques. Other methods include shrinkage stope mining which is mining upward creating a sloping underground room, long wall mining which is grinding a long ore surface underground and room and pillar which is removing ore from rooms while leaving pillars in place to support the roof of the room. Room and pillar mining often leads to retreat mining which is removing the pillars which support rooms, allowing the room to cave in, loosening more ore. Additional subsurface mining methods include hard rock mining which is mining of hard materials, bore hole mining, drift and fill mining, long hole slope mining, sub level caving and block caving.