North Karanpura Coalfield
Overview
In 1917, L.S.S.O’Malley described the coalfields in the upper reaches of the Damodar as follows: "Near the western boundary of Jharia field is that of Bokaro, covering" 220 square miles (570 km), "with an estimated content of 1,500 million tons; close by… is the Ramgarh field (40 square miles), in which, however, coal is believed to be of inferior quality. A still larger field in the same district is that called Karanpura, which extends over" 544 square miles (1,410 km) "and has an estimated capacity of 9,000 million tons."
The Coalfield
There are large numbers of seams in the North Karanpura Coalfield, some with thicknesses over 72 feet.
North Karnpura Coalfield covers an area of 1,230 square kilometres (470 sq mi) and has total coal reserves of 13,110.84 million tonnes.
5miles
mine site
mine site
River
River
Mangardaha mine
2miles
River
Reserves
Geological reserves in the North Karanpura Coalfield in million tonnes as on 1/4/2010:
| Type of Coal | Proved | Indicated | Inferred (exploration) |
Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medium coking coal | 508.67 | 2799.84 | 413.43 | 3,721.24 |
| Non-coking coal | 8990.75 | 2,909.72 | 1,451.53 | 13,352.00 |
| Total | 9,499.42 | 5,708.86 | 1,864.96 | 17,073.24 |
Projects
| CCL Operational Area | Projects |
|---|---|
| North Karanpura Area | Churi underground, Dakra Bukbuka opencast, K.D.H. opencast, Karkatta opencast, Rohini opencast, Purnadih opencast. |
| Piparwar Area | Piparwar opencast, Ray-Bachra underground, Ashoka opencast, Piparwar coal handling plant/ coal preparation plant. |
| Magadh Sanghamitra Area | Magadh open cast project, Sanghamitra open cast project. |
| Amrapali & Chandragupta Area | Amrapali open cast project, Chandragupta open cast project. |
Transport
In 1927, Bengal Nagpur Railway opened the 72-mile (116 km) Barkakana-Muri-Chandil line to traffic. In the same year the Central India Coalfields Railway opened the Gomoh-Barkakana line. It was extended to Daltonganj in 1929. Later these lines were amalgamated with East India Railway. The 57 km long Hazaribagh-Barkakana section of the Koderma-Hazaribagh-Barkakana-Ranchi line was opened for passenger trains on 7 December 2016 by the railway minister Suresh Prabhu in the presence of chief minister Raghubar Das.
Coal-bed methane
ONGC's preliminary assessment of coal-bed methane indicates that four Damodar Valley coalfields – Jharia, Bokaro, North Karanpura and Raniganj – to be the most prospective.