From extraction to regeneration: How India’s coal mines are being reimagined

Pisciculture, afforestation, pumped storage, eco-tourism have emerged as the more popular forms of re-using abandoned mines

Barely five hundred metres after crossing the Damodar river near Jharkhand’s Bhurkunda town, a leaf-strewn path branches out from the main road to Saunda, a coal town in Ramgarh district. This almost missable path, lined with sal trees, slopes downward towards the former coal mine in the Barkasayal area. It’s now used for harvesting fish.

Owned by the Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), the open cast mine was shut around four decades ago, and got inundated with groundwater. On top of this, floodwaters from the Damodar and the smaller Nalkari river, about a kilometer away, filled up the mine, creating an artificial lake. 

This became the ideal place for pisciculture for local Rajdev Yadav and his peers in November 2023. They currently operate the fish farm within 6 acres, using 48 cages. This employs 57 people, including women.

“With coal mines gradually closing, we were becoming unemployed. During the pandemic, there was no work. We wanted something of our own through which we could earn a livelihood,” says 52-year-old Yadav, who is the secretary of the society.

An influential person in his village, Yadav used to work as a small-time, daily labour contractor in the mines, handling physical loading and unloading of coal onto trucks. But as machines started replacing men for this work, he started looking for alternative incomes and ventured into pisciculture.

India’s coal regions face an uphill task of ensuring people retain livelihoods as the energy transition takes place, as CarbonCopy previously reported. Such initiatives can go a long way in smoothening the just transition process.

Besides Saunda, fish farms have sprung up in 15 such abandoned mines across the districts of Hazaribagh, Ramgarh, Ranchi, Bokaro, and Chatra. 

Coal India Limited (CIL) has also explored other ways of repurposing shut mines by turning them into tourism sites, or afforesting and reclaiming these areas for agriculture, generating sand, and even supplying water for drinking and domestic uses from water-filled mines.

In Jharkhand alone, there are around 1,741 such abandoned coal mines. The potential for transforming unutilised mines to a productive enterprise that generates employment is immense. Especially in India’s coal regions, which are facing negative fallout from the energy transition, as the green energy and clean tech industries are springing up either in non-coal regions, primarily in west or south India.

In fact, the central government is also appreciating this potential. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for 143 mines across the country to be closed in an eco-friendly manner, which can then be used by local farmers.

However, there are concerns about the presence of toxic chemicals in these mines, which need to be removed or treated before they can be re-used for any purpose.

Transformation

In Saunda, that is precisely the case. Locals from three nearby villages came together to form a society — Maa Bhavani Matasajibi Sahyog Samiti Limited, for the explicit purpose of pisciculture.

“We wrote to the fishery department, and asked for a NOC (no objection certificate) from CCL. The fishery department advised us to make a society of the people who want to work on the abandoned mine, and that’s how the society came to be,” says Yadav.

While the Central Saunda Pisciculture Project in the Barkasayal area employs 57 people directly, indirect benefits reach around 250 local villagers. Men work in shifts throughout the day, while women prefer the afternoon shifts, when they get a respite from household and other work. 

Just metres from the water’s edge, the villagers have set up a big tent with chairs and a bed. The tent doubles as a resting pit and a storeroom of varied fishing equipment like nets, and fish feed. From there, one can see a vast expanse of the artificial lake, crisscrossed by metal cages where the fish are reared. To reach the cages, the locals use a custom-made raft fashioned from plastic drums, which can carry over a dozen people and heavy bags of feed.

It took three months to install the cages, while the fish took even longer to grow enough to be harvested. These expensive cages, measuring 12 x 8 x 5 metres, were supplied to the fish farmers at 90% subsidy, according to Yadav. The district commissioner provisioned the financing from the District Mineral Fund, and the government even provided feed and breeding fish to start off.

In the first year, the society lost about 10 tonnes of fish due to over-breeding. Oxygen supply in the water reduced, leading to fish deaths, but Yadav chalks it up to lack of experience. Last year, however, they sold 42 tonnes of fish, mainly tilapia, and kept a profit of roughly ₹20 lakh. While most of it will be split up among the society’s members, a chunk will also be reinvested in the business, mostly for buying fish feed.

“Although we are learning, this is definitely better than working at coal mines,” says Yadav, sitting in the tent, while his peers nod in agreement. “This fishery has potential for employing around 150 people if it can be utilised properly,” he says.

For developing fish farms in coal mines, this paper published in the International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences outlines certain processes that will support the growth of fish — flooding with surface water to improve water quality, use of submersible pump aerators to increase dissolved oxygen in the water, and application of manure to increase nutrient content.

In fact, the paper’s findings included that the cattle manure enhanced production of fish food, while the fish itself could grow up to 1.5 kg in eighteen months, primarily catla or the Indian carp.

The water, too, needs to be suitable for pisciculture. First, checks need to be run to ensure there aren’t any toxins like lead and arsenic. If clean, then it needs to be treated to make it suitable for pisciculture, or even diverting for irrigation or supplying to households, says a senior mine closure expert, who wished to remain anonymous.

“It is a misconception that coal mine water is toxic. There are methodologies for treating it, based on government prescribed standards. Any use of mine water is allowed only after meeting environmental clearance conditions as set by the MoEFCC (Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change),” he says. 

Regarding treatment techniques, he says that water in mines appears black because of coal. “It is suspended particulate matter, and it settles through sedimentation after some time. So, the water treatment is required only for suspended solids. 95% of our mines are non-toxic, and the water quality is good. With continuous, moderate treatment, the water can be utilised,” he says.

Close to Saunda, an even older such society has been fishing in the waters of the Ara coal mine since 2010. The 68-member Kuju Fishermen Cooperative Society, which also received a ₹4-crore cage infrastructure, funded through government subsidy, boasts of 126 cages in which 40 tonnes of fish were harvested last year.

The average selling price of a tonne of fish is around ₹1 lakh, according to Yadav.

Multiple uses

According to a paper published in ScienceDirect, the uses of abandoned mines are varied — from industrial tourism to energy generation through pumped storage, wind, and compressed air. 

“It all depends on the mine’s location, as the same solution is not fit for all areas,” says Ashwani Ashok,  director of just transition at the think-tank Center for Environment and Energy Development (CEED).

His view is that overburden (OB) — the excavated earth from the mine which is dumped beside the dug out area, forming a hill — has diverse uses in a repurposing scenario. Especially since the mainstay of coal mining today is open cast, which generates a lot of OB.

“The OB soil has a lot of stones, which are converted to sand, and then supplied to the construction industries. Another option is to use the OB for ground mounted solar. But it is only possible when the OB is firm, and does not disintegrate,” says Ashok.

The workaround is planting shrubs and vegetation to bind the OB soil, making it stronger and greener.  

He believes that building solar capacity will also attract allied industries, like raw material suppliers, solar panel makers and assembling units, which will in turn generate employment. It will also secure Jharkhand’s energy needs, and the state need not import power.

“Mostly, reuse of mines are being done with the aim of just transition, as there are a lot of informal workers involved. The whole economy can’t be changed, especially in a coal-dependent state like Jharkhand. If you can’t provide jobs, then people will migrate. People need some income generating opportunities in their areas too,” says Ashok. 

As for pisciculture’s popularity, Ashok’s reasoning is that it is generating enough revenue to employ a substantial number of people. “From Ramgarh, they are exporting fish to other states like Bihar, Bengal. It is not dependent only on people who were directly employed in coal work. Incomes from pisciculture and informal coal labour are comparable, and can even be better,” he says.

In Yadav’s village, people who are not farming fish are either engaged in contractual work for private coal companies or daily wage labourers in the construction industry. The rest have migrated to bigger cities. But the question remains why all villagers are not jumping on the pisciculture bandwagon, especially as it is giving substantial returns?

Pisciculture does not pay out daily wages, and most people in such areas are used to earning daily, according to Yadav. “In fishing, one sees earnings only after the harvesting period, which can take a few months,” he says. And how many people can afford to wait a few months before seeing any income?

Besides pisciculture, two other big usages of abandoned mines are eco-tourism and afforestation efforts for creating carbon sinks. The latter, however, does not create a continued income stream for locals, besides when they are hired for planting saplings and watering them in the initial stages, says Yadav.

“Sustainable development can happen if the coal has been mined out, and the OB has been levelled. After that, afforestation is possible, as well as presenting the mine as an eco-tourism site,” explains R Munda, project officer at another abandoned mine, Saunda D, roughly 6 km away from Central Saunda.

While Saunda D is being leased to a private company for digging out more coal in India’s quest to increase coal production, as CarbonCopy reported earlier this year, Munda reveals that an eco-tourism park is being built in Bhurkunda itself.

However, pumped storage in abandoned mines has not yet been explored in this region. Water from the abandoned mines in Bhurkunda have been pumped out, treated for drinking and domestic purposes, while some have been channeled into irrigation and dust control, according to Munda. 

As of February 2023, Coal India had converted 30 abandoned mines into eco-tourism sites across the country, including Kenapara Eco Park in Chhattisgarh and Ananta medicinal garden in the Talcher Coalfields of Odisha. The afforestation measures also helped the company to surpass its plantation target of 1510 hectares by 100 hectares in FY 2022-23.

In fact, according to government data, Coal India has planted over 30 lakh saplings in FY23, and managed to afforest 4,392 hectares within the boundaries of the mine-leased areas. This resulted in the carbon sink potential of 2.2 litres/year. 

As of April 2021, the Coal Ministry had identified 293 abandoned mines across the country for closure or reuse.

In the USA, which has about 550,000 abandoned mines, efforts are underway to convert them to ‘gravity batteries’ for energy storage, while the erstwhile coal belts in Appalachian mountains and the western part of the country are being explored for setting up AI (artificial intelligence) data centers, which need large chunks of land.

Elsewhere like in Germany, efforts are being undertaken to utilise mines as a lower reservoir for underground pumped storage hydropower (UPSH), as well as for compressed air energy storage (CAES), heat storage and geothermal power generation.

India is also toying with the idea of pumped storage in abandoned coal mines with Coal India identifying 20 such mines for evaluation and feasibility for pumped storage. 

Last month, the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), announced that it is planning to set up a 500 MW pumped storage project at the closed Medipally open cast mine in the south Indian state of Telangana. It is expected to cost around ₹3,000 crore and can produce energy at low cost for 40 years. 

But pumped storage cannot be possible everywhere, as sufficient incline is required, says the mine closure expert. Now, if the height between the highest point on the OB and the dug out mine is sufficient — around 50-60 metres, then pumped storage is feasible, he says. 

“During daytime, a solar pump brings up the water to the OB dump, where a water reservoir is created. At night, the water is released to the lower mine level through pipes. This rotates the turbine, generating electricity,” he says, adding that CIL is running a few pumped storage pilot projects, and it will be taken up on a larger scale if they are successful. 

Questions mailed to Coal India on this remain unanswered. The copy will be updated once CarbonCopy receives the responses.

Urban forests

A different, but ingenious use of abandoned mines can be found more than 1,700 km north of Medipally, in the heart of India’s capital, Delhi. The 692-acre Aravalli Biodiversity Park, stretching out lushly amidst the concrete structures of Vasant Kunj in South Delhi, was built on an abandoned open-pit quarry.

The mines have a depth of around 30 feet on average, while some go as deep as 100 feet, and their diameters could be around 200-250 metres, says Dr. Mohammad Shah Hussain, director of the Aravalli Biodiversity Park.

His 5-member team began work on the degraded piece of land in 2004. “There were damages to topsoil, soil regimes, groundwater percolation which resulted in degraded, barren land. Our aim was to bring back native vegetation. In 20 years, we have restored 450 acres of land,” he says in his office in the middle of the park.

Outside, earthy trails lead to differently restored sites, including medicinal gardens, orchid and fern conservatories, grasslands, as well as a showcase of the native plant species found historically in the Aravallis.

The primary challenge faced by these scientists was the different climactic conditions in the mining pits, as they are at different depths, which changed the temperature and moisture gradients.

Accordingly, they had to study which type of plants would grow at what level of the mines, and then plant seeds for optimal growth. Naturally, herbs and shrubs growing at the lower temperatures in the depth of the mines would be different from the big trees planted for shading at the top of the mines.

Indeed, walking for an hour around the park, the temperatures changed by quite a few degrees, depending on which level of the mines one was in. Deep down, it was more damp and cool, where plants which favoured shade thrived, while higher up, the climate was hotter and sweat inducing. 

“We have planted over 22 plant families, which have spawned over 900 species of plants. Now, birds and butterflies have started coming back. We have spotted around 115 types of butterflies, 215 bird species, and 29 reptile species. The more diverse it becomes, the more animals and birds are attracted to it,” says Dr. Hussain.

Since there were some wetlands also in the area earlier, Dr. Hussain’s team created water holes inside the park to mimic natural water bodies which can meet the water requirements of the animals foraging the park, as well as help in regenerating groundwater.

According to Dr. Hussain, animal species like the Indian pitta, pied hornbill, black eagle, Eurasian griffon vulture and the leopard gecko — former natives to the Delhi region, were spotted again after the Aravalli Biodiversity Park was restored.

Migratory birds from the Himalayas and south India are also flocking to the park, staying longer as the place is cooler compared to neighbouring areas, while the shaded, cooler temperatures of the deeper mines attract nocturnal animals like the porcupine, jackals and civets.

“A biodiversity park mimics a national park. There are multiple benefits of having such a park in a city — groundwater regeneration, clean air, and carbon capture and sequestration,” says Dr. Hussain.

Such restoration of biodiversity requires scientific intervention, and is not easy, especially when being done in abandoned mines, offers Debadityo Sinha, senior resident fellow and lead of the Climate and Ecosystems team at the Delhi-based Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

“Removing chemicals and toxic elements from the mines are crucial before attempting restoration. If no disturbance can be ensured, then a forest will grow naturally over time, especially if there is a forest nearby,” he says.

“Mines can be cooler if there is canopy, good wind and contains water, which will attract animals. But in order to restore biodiversity, growing plants and grass is important. That will attract herbivores, which will attract carnivores, leading to proper restoration,” says Sinha.

A rapidly warming planet is bringing a host of problems like extreme heat, depleting water resources, and making cities unlivable, as CarbonCopy reported earlier. Targeted interventions like afforestation, building urban parks can help mitigate some of the problems like reducing temperatures and regenerating groundwater. 

In less populated areas, where locals are dependent on jobs in coal mines, revamping old, abandoned for commercial purposes like fishing can ensure that locals have alternate livelihoods, and do not end up victims of a transitioning economy. 

While repurposing old mines may not be an uniform solution for the different set of climatic and development issues plaguing India, it can at least ease some of the burden.

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Shaswata Kundu Chaudhuri

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