Coal production in Open Cast Coal Mines Projects (OCP) of Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) in West Burdwan district has been completely stopped since yesterday due to incessant rainfall and huge waterlogging, said Niladri Roy, director (technical), ECL.
ECL, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL) is the largest coal producer in Bengal and has been losing about 70,000 tonne of power-grade coal production from the 20 odd open cast coal mines in Raniganj coalfields area.
“We are currently focusing on draining out the waterlogged open cast coal mines by using the high power pumps. Due to incessant rains in the catchment areas since the past few days, we have been producing about 50,000 tonnes, which is almost half of our total production of one lakh tonne from OCPs per day. But the situation worsened since yesterday and the situation is still the same till today,” said Niladri Roy.
He further added that instead of normal 25 rakes transportation, the rake dispatch has come down to 10-12 rakes per day to thermal power plants of Bengal and other states. The production in Rajmahal OCP in Jharkhand has registered normal production.
Three-fourth of the coal production of ECL comes from the OCPs and the rest from underground coal mines. Though at present ECL has sufficient stock of coal in its stock, if the rainfall continues then there will be immense pressure as the festive season is ahead when the power plants will require more coal for enhanced power productions.
In the past 24 hours, Asansol has received a rainfall of 151.40 milimetre and Durgapur has registered a rainfall of 70 mm. Durgapur Barrage has released 84,550 cusecs of water today morning.
However, there has been no further release from Panchet and Maithon dam in Jharkhand’s Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC).
The bridge on Tumni river in Kanksha is under water, disconnecting West Burdwan with Birbhum district. The agricultural fields in Bid Bihar, Shibpur, Nabagram, Krishnapur villages of Kanksha are under rain water.
Ashoke Banerjee (52), a resident of Raniganj chati village in Itapara gram panchayat, under Barabani Block of Asansol has been killed along with his cattle after his khatal collapsed on them due to incessant rains.
“Since the past three days it’s been continuously raining. Our team is carrying out an assessment of the situation and will take a final call after some time,” said Kailash Mondal, director of Kazi Nazrul Islam Airport in Andal.
The Asansol Municipal Corporation has issued an emergency number (9083254848) and has warned the people to evacuate their area in danger zone after 192.5 mm rainfall has been registered the day before yesterday and 201.2 mm yesterday.
But train passengers are facing a lot of problems as the tunnels are underwater and the path to busy Asansol railway station is waterlogged. Locals have urged the DRM of Asansol to solve the waterlogging issue in the area during every monsoon.
The Railpr area of Asansol is waterlogged and houses are under water and the Barakar, Nunia and Garui rivulets are overflowing.
Three people have also been hurt in Jamuria after a house collapse.
The factories in Jamuria industrial estate are also facing waterlogging problems. About 10 kaccha houses have flattened in the downpour.
Pandaveswar and Andal areas of Durgapur are also waterlogged.