Coal news and updates

Law & order forcing CMPDI to outsource drilling

February 27: Increasing incidents of law and order violation in coal-bearing areas are forcing the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute (CMPDI) to outsource drilling work, a company official told ICMW.

“We cannot but go for outsourced drilling in blocks where there is law and order problem; otherwise, our machines will lie idle. There are a number of areas, eg, Dumka in Jharkhand and Chhapra in Bihar, where such problems are very acute. In those locations, we have to depend on outsourcing,” the official said.

However, even contractors are not being able to make much headway in such areas, he said.

In fact, outsourced drilling was severely affected last year (2013-14) as CMPDI missed not only the target of 515,000 metres by a huge margin, but actual drilling through this route was even lower than that of 2012-13 (while departmental drilling was 14% above the target of 285,000 metres).

Also, in the current year (2014-15), while there would be a significant growth in overall drilling, outsourced work would fall far below its annual target, he added.