North Karanpura Coalfield is located in Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Chatra and Latehar districts in the Indian state of Jharkhand.
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" , "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" "and has an estimated capacity of 9,000 million tons."L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, Sikkim, p.87, Cambridge University Press, 1917 (paper back 2011)
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 and has total coal reserves of 13,110.84 million tonnes.
Reserves Geological reserves in the North Karanpura Coalfield in million tonnes as on 1/4/2010: Type of CoalProvedIndicatedInferred(exploration)TotalMedium coking coal508.672799.84413.433,721.24Non-coking coal8990.752,909.721,451.5313,352.00Total9,499.425,708.861,864.9617,073.24
Projects CCL Operational AreaProjectsNorth Karanpura AreaChuri underground, Dakra Bukbuka opencast, K.D.H. opencast, Karkatta opencast, Rohini opencast, Purnadih opencast.Piparwar AreaPiparwar opencast, Ray-Bachra underground, Ashoka opencast, Piparwar coal handling plant/ coal preparation plant.Magadh Sanghamitra AreaMagadh open cast project, Sanghamitra open cast project.Amrapali & Chandragupta AreaAmrapali open cast project, Chandragupta open cast project.
Transport In 1927, Bengal Nagpur Railway opened the 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.
See also South Karanpura Coalfield
References