Phase 2 of the RKP Opencast Mine Sanctioned: Minister Vivek

Adilabad: The Singareni Collieries Company would start Phase 2 of the Ramakrishnapur opencast mine in Mancherial district, as per information provided to labour and mines minister Gaddam Vivek.

The minister claimed that the mining activity at RKP phase 2 would create job opportunities for local youth and added that they have to get the forest clearance for the RKP phase 2 open-cast mine. Already, there exists an RKP opencast mine.

Vivek said the Singareni collieries has sanctioned phase 2 of the Ramakrishnapur opencast mine.

He urged the district forest officials to give clearance for the newly sanctioned opencast mine.

Notably, the district forest officials have to send a report to the environment ministry to obtain the forest clearance.

However, underground mines create more jobs compared to opencast mines, since the use of machinery is higher in coal mining in the opencast mine. Whereas, coal mining will be done with a manual workforce in the underground coal mine, so that jobs will be created and recruitments made.

For a long time, SCCL has been planning to start new mines in the Mancherial district. The Congress government promised to open new mines to create jobs for the local youth.

However, many people are sceptical about the creation of jobs with the opencast mines when SCCL is doing retrenchment of its existing workers to reduce its financial burden and engaging machines and giving mining activity to private companies.

Minister Vivek alleged that not a single coal mine was started during the ten-year term of the BRS. Instead, workers were retrenched in the SCCL. But, the Congress government was making efforts to start new mines to create jobs for the local youth, he said.