Mob throws stones at CISF officials in Dhanbad coal mine

Dhanbad: A mob threw stones at CISF officials, who had gone to survey the extent of illegal mining by a drone camera, in the Barora area of BCCL on Tuesday.
Allegedly, more than a dozen goons of coal mafias not only started throwing stones on the officials present there, but they also stopped the mining activity of the outsourcing company, Hill Top, and threatened their representatives of dire consequences if they dared to do it again.
The CISF officials, acting on the instructions of CISF DIG Vinay Kajla, were conducting drone surveys to identify the areas of illegal mining for future action by assessing the ground realities. On Tuesday, when the drone survey started at the AMP colliery of Barora area of the BCCL around 9 in the morning, dozens of persons entered the mining area and stopped all mining activity there demanding immediate stoppage of the survey.
They went back only after the drone survey was stopped. The mining activities in the outsourcing patch remained disrupted for nearly three hours because of the incident.
Kajla told TOI over phone on Wednesday: “The CISF had no intention of raiding the area but only to identify the area where largescale illegal mining goes on and want the poor people not to endanger their lives for the benefit of coal mafias. The area is situated on the edge of an active coal mine and blasting and other mining activities can cause subsidence and loss of life which we do not want. The BCCL has increased its production tally from 30.16 MT of coal in 2021-22 FY to 36 MT of coal in 2022-23 FY and has a target to produce 41 MT of coal in the current fiscal year, which is only possible by increasing the production, but casualties disrupt the entire supply chain.”
He said the BCCL has 43 working mines spread over 550 square km with several railway sidings and dumping yards and it is not possible for the 2,300 CISF personnel of BCCL alone to stop illegal mining.
“We are moving towards minimising it to the best possible extent with the help of the district administration,” he said and added that nearly 300 illegal entries into the rat-hole mines in the last one year.