0016-7622/2017-89-3-307/$ 1.00 © GEOL. SOC. INDIA JOURNAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF INDIA Vol.89, March 2017, pp.307-314 A New Model of Exact Reclamation of Post-mining Land to Address Land Acquisition Problem in Indian Coal Mining Industry Pawan Kumar Singh 1 , Arvind Kumar Mishra 2* and Deepanshu Ranjan Singh 2 1 Eastern Coalfields Ltd., P.O. Mugma, District, Dhanbad 2 Department of Mining Engineering, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad - 826 004 E-mail: pksinghbhai@gmail.com, *drarvndmishra@gmail.com; deepanshu.05.7@gmail.com ABSTRACT Indian coal mining industry is in transition phase with the growing demand of coal and is likely to escalate further with the need of ultra-mega power projects as well as announcement of smart cities projects. Although, there exist sufficient coal reserves in India, continuous acquisition and possession of coal bearing land is required to minimize the existing gap prevailing between coal demand and supply.The solution of the problem lies not only in modification of laws and policies of industry, but also in modification of mining engineering practices towards sustainable development. This paper critically examines the cause of the problem in the light of Indian laws and practices of the industry. In this paper a method of exact reclamation of post-mining land has been designed as a solution to make easier land acquisition by way of proposing a system of returning back the exact reclaimed land to its owners under corporate social responsibility activity of the industry. The proposed conceptual model of interlinking corporate social responsibility with land exchange will encourage sustainable development practice by mining engineers, and may turn around the public image of the industry. INTRODUCTION Coal mining is practiced in several nations of the world. Global coal production in 2013-14 was over 7800 million tonnes and the major contributing nations were China (45.5%), USA (11.6%), India (7.8%), Indonesia (6.3%), Australia (6.3%), Russia (4.4%), South Africa (3.3%), Germany (2.4%), Poland (1.8%), and Kazakhstan (1.5%). Most of the coal produced is consumed in generating electricity. In India also, coal mining is the backbone of economic development and its role in future is considered significant till any renewable source of energy source or else nuclear source is developed as significant source of energy. The dependence on coal for power generation has increased from 57% in 2012 to 61% in 2015 while the total installed power capacity has increased 32% from 2012 to 2015. Figure 1 shows the installed power capacity of different sources of energy in India. Mining companies have a debatable reputation in terms of their social responsibility in developing countries and is seen as dirty sector which require strict scrutiny in the recent years (Kapelus, 2002). Although as the demand and supply in India is increasing, as shown in Fig.2, the need for the new and large mining projects are indispensable. Land acquisition and its possession is the pre-requisite for starting any mining project. However, since last several years, for advancement of its existing coal mines and opening of new projects, the Indian coal mining industry has been facing serious land acquisition problems (Khanna, 2013). The process of land acquisition and its possession has become full of uncertainties, risks, protests and resistance by displaced persons (Morris, 2007; Morris and Pandey, 2009). Many coal mining projects are running behind the schedule due to the delay in acquisition of land (CIL Director’s Report, 2014-15), and as the demand supply gap is increasing it has become more important to acquire land adopting sustainable practice. The process of land acquisition and its possession has become full of uncertainties, risks, protests and resistance on the part of the displaced persons. Protests on account of environmental reasons have also hindered the land acquisition and rehabilitation. As most of the people are directly dependent on landscape for their livelihoods in India, damage to land often leads to social, economic, and political tensions and violent conflicts, now and then. Although, there exist sufficient reserves, experienced and robust organizations for coal mining, and continuously increasing demand of coal, but the industry is struggling hard with land acquisition and possession problem. The way through which companies responded to these issues are reflected in their annual reports focusing on the corporate social responsibility as an appropriate solution. A series of statutory provisions with regard to protection of the rights of the land owners and the community, environment, land reclamation, corporate social responsibility etc. have been framed by the government. The industry has also been complying with the statutory provisions by way of making policies, introducing new technology and orienting its mining activities towards sustainable development, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Petkoski and Twose, 2003). The mining industry is making substantial investments of more powerful technologies, modern mining methods and efforts of mitigating business impacts on environment and community of the industry. There is urgent need to attract land owners and community to address the land acquisition issues between the industry and the community to ensure mutual benefits for both the industry and land owners. The current practice of land reclamation can be modified economically applying more sustainable mining engineering practice in a way that the post-mining land is brought back nearly to its previous Fig.1. Installed power capacity of India (Central Electricity Authority, GOI, 2015).