Central Mine Planning & Design Institute (CMPDI), a subsidiary of Coal India, would be submitting its report on the expansion of the Rajmahal opencast mining project in May 2002.

The mines falls under the administration of Eastern Coalfields and an expansion from 10.5 million tonnes to 17 million tonnes is envisaged at these mines.

It may be recalled that Metchem of Canada, had submitted a feasibility report on the mining project in September 2001. However, according to ECL the project cost mentioned in the report was very high. Thus, ECL had asked CMPDI to prepare a feasibility report on the project, which could then be compared with that of Metchem.

It may be mentioned that in 1993, ECL had approved the expansion of the Rajmahal mining project, in anticipation of the addition requirement of power grade coal by National Thermal Power Corporation for its Farakka power project and Kahalgaon super thermal power project in West Bengal and Bihar, respectively.

In fact, CMPDI had also prepared and submitted a draft report to ECL in January 2001, while the final report was to be submitted in April 2001. However, due to a resource crunch the final report was kept in abeyance. Later, following Metchem’s interest in the project, the Canadian company was asked to prepare a report on the project. But, the report so prepared showed a very high cost and thus ECL asked CMPDI to prepare a fresh report for comparison with that of Metchem’s.