59 11.2 Description of Environment … 60 11.3 A
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11.0 SUMMARY & CONCLUSION 11.1 Project Location and Project Description … 59 11.2 Description of Environment … 60 11.3 Anticipated Environmental Impacts and Mitigation Measures … 62 11.4 Environmental Monitoring Programme … 63 11.5 Additional Studies … 63 11.6 Project Benefits … 64 11.7 EMP / Environment Management Plan … 64 11.1 Project Location and Project Description 11.1.1 The Government of India, Ministry of Coal has allotted Marki Barka Coal Block, over an area of 700 ha (7 sq km) to the Madhya Pradesh State Mining Corporation Ltd. for non power sector / merchandise mining. The block is located in Singrauli Coalfield, in Singrauli district, of Madhya Pradesh. The geographical location of the block is given at Figure 1 of this document. 11.1.2 The area is fairly flat with gentle undulations with ground sloping towards NE to E. The ground elevation varies from 374 mRL to 418 mRL. There are no perennial water courses in the proposed lease area. Seasonal water courses flow from centre of the block towards North East, South and SW. The drainage of the area is controlled by Mahan river flowing one km to three km NE of the block. Dhamar river, a tributary of Mahan river, flows from West to East on Southside, outside the block. 11.1.3 The Singrauli Coalfield is located mainly in Madhya Pradesh (M.P.) and partly in Uttarpradesh (U.P.). The coalfield is divided in two parts. The eastern part called Mohar sub- basin contains all presently working mines of UP. The western part spread over vast area has large coal occurrences. Through recent drilling, MECL has established presence of coal in the southern and western part of main basin, over large areas. 11.1.4 The detailed exploration of block was carried out by M/s Naresh Kumar & Company Pvt. Ltd., based on MECL drilled seven boreholes which proved the occurrence of coal. The detailed exploration involved drilling of 42 boreholes with cores, and 14 non coring boreholes. The drilling operations proved eight coal seams in block. Out of these only four seams are well developed throughout the block and hence workable. 11.1.5 These seams have variable gradient between 5º to 8º and 15º-20º. There are 13 faults in the area. The top seam incrops in the area at about 11.0m depth, while maximum depth of lowest workable seam, is 330 m. 11.1.6 The five workable coal seams have geological reserves of 71.22 Mt thickness above 1.2 m. It is proposed to work the mine by underground method so as to protect important surface features like villages, forests and seasonal water courses. Hence the mineable reserves have been calculated at 35.13 Mt. 59 11.1.7 It is proposed to have two inclines which will traverse all the seams. The inclines are planned at gradient of 1 in 8 and will be driven to touch all five workable seams one after another. For ventilation purposes a return air shaft is planned, upto top most seam. 11.1.8 The coal is planned to be extracted by Board and Pillar Method. The seams will be worked from top downward one after another. Only partial extraction will be carried out in areas with villages, forests and other important surface features so that subsidence is limited to permissible limits. In area with no restrictions, full extraction will be carried out. The method of extraction is shown at Fig 4 of this document. 11.1.9 The coal will be brought out of the mine by a conveyor in the main drift. The coal from faces, after passing through feeder breakers, will be delivered to the district conveyor for discharging on to seam conveyors. The conveyor will deliver coal to 500 t ground bunker on surface from which coal will be reclaimed and transported by closed tippers to Railway siding. 11.1.10 The surface infrastructure for the mine shall be constructed over an area about 17 ha of land within the proposed lease area. Colony will be constructed over non coal bearing area of about 16 ha near Purail village, around existing roads. 11.1.11 The life of the mine will be 35 years including development period of two years. 11.2 Description of Environment 11.2.1 The 700 ha proposed lease area is spread over lands of three villages and part of two compartments of Protected Forests. There is one village Pidara nearly fully inside the block area while number of houses of Purail village are within southern boundary of the block. Nearly ¾ area of Non-forest land belongs of Purail village. It is proposed that coal under village areas and forest lands will be partially extracted so that there is no damage to land. 11.2.2 The company will acquire about 17 ha of land within the lease area for mine entries, surface infrastructure etc. Another 16 ha lands, preferably non coal bearing Govt. land, will be acquired outside lease area for the colony. 11.2.3 These are a total of 43 Census villages within 10 km radius of proposed lease boundary, buffer zone area. The total land area of these villages as per 2001 Census data is 24397 ha. After adding 18, 652.6 ha of forest areas as measured from key plan, the total buffer zone area comes to 43049 ha. 11.2.4 There are 635 ha of revenue forests in two villages of buffer zone, bringing the total forest land 19287.6 ha or 44.8% of buffer zone area. Cultivated land totals 13003 ha or 30.2%. 732 ha or 5.6% of cultivated land was irrigated as per 2001 census. Nearly 6000 ha or 13.9% of land was not cultivated although it was culturable which was quite high proportion. 11.2.5 The area receives good rainfall averaging over 1250 mm in a year. The climate is marked by warmer day temperatures eight months in a year as recorded at nearest Meteorological station at Siddhi about 40 kms away. The day temperatures during November to February are usually below 20ºC. The relative humidity recorded at Sidhi varied between 23% to 85%. Relative Humidity below 30% was only recorded during months of April and May each year. The wind velocities recorded at Siddhi were usually below 5 kmph from October to January each year. Velocities go on increasing from February till September, when velocities above 5 kmph are recorded. The calm periods are below 25% during October to February but decrease further below 15% during rest of the months. 60 11.2.6 Most of the water courses in the area are seasonal. The two perennial water courses in the buffer zone area are Mahan Nadi and Dhamar Nadi. There are three tributary nallas of Dhamar Nadi which have some water till about December each year. Most of the other water courses are purely seasonal having water for a few days after rains. 11.2.7 The area has reasonably good ground water resources. Presently ground water resources are shallow ranging form 3m to 15m. The ground water levels, as surveyed from 4 wells in core zone are 5.7 m to 9.45 m bgl during post monsoon and 8.6 m to 12.35 m during pre-monsoon. The 42 buffer zone wells monitored had water levels from 3.0 m to 15 m bgl during post monsoon and 6 m to 18 m bgl during pre monsoon. The monitoring of ground water levels by CGWB has revealed that there has been no reduction in ground water level during last decade. 11.2.8 The net ground water availability of the area is 44.38 MCM and present consumption is 4.68 MCM for both core and buffer zone. In the next 25 year it is likely to increase to 5.44 MCM, which is 12.2% of water availability. The mine is expected to pump 1.56 MCM. Hence net ground water availability after mine pumping will be 37.38 MCM. The radius of influence of the underground mine will vary from 544 m to 772 m and will be limited to 430 m on down deep side. Thus there will be little impact on ground water availability. 11.2.9 The quality water environment was tested by collecting and analysing three surface water and six ground water samples from water bodies in the core and buffer zone. All three surface water samples had fairly high coliforms content. Out of seven ground water samples four open dugwell samples had coliforms between 2 to 4 MPN per 100 ml. Overall analysis shows that waters of the area are not polluted as all other parameters were well below the desirable levels of IS 10500 of 1991, the drinking water standard. 11.2.10 Air Quality was monitored at eight stations including one in the proposed lease area. The values of PM 10 and PM 2.5 were much below the prescribed limits for rural areas. The 3 3 maximum values were below 47 µg/m for PM 10 and below 14.6 µg/m for PM 2.5 . The values of 3 NO 2 and SO 2 extremely low, both being below 9µg/m . The remaining eight parameters were, either absent or well below detectable levels. The dustfall rates monitored at two locations were below 10 t/km 2/month. 11.2.11 Noise levels were monitored at eight locations. The noise levels recorded were below 50dB(A) at all eight stations during day time and 42 dB(A) during night time.