India has a very long history of commercial coal mining that covers nearly 220 years beginning from 1744 by M/S Sumner & Heatly of East India Company in the Raniganj Coalfield. Even though, the growth of coal mining sector was slower in the nation for some years due to lesser demand, its growth picked up with the introduction of steam locomotives in the year 1883. The production of coal in the nation got sudden boost from the First World War, which was suddenly reduced in the early thirties. Again, the production boosted up after 1942.

Coal mining in India:

Nowadays, the demand for coal is improving in India with the development of thermal power plants at a very past pace as compared to what it was a decade ago. The list of top companies in the coal mining industry in India is given below, here it should be noted that there are not many major private coal company as in the early 1970s since almost all privately owned coal companies were nationalized under the Coal Mines Act in India:

• Coal India Limited

• Neyveli Lignite Corporation

• Singareni Collieries Company Limited

Some of the details regarding these top coal mining companies in India are given below:

Coal India Limited:

This largest company in the coal mining industry makes the other companies in this sector look like small companies because of its reach, cost, scale and size. It is a maharatna company offering a wide range of employment opportunities by issuing frequent job notifications through employment newspapers and job portals. The list of products dealt by this company is given below:

• Coking Coal

• Semi Coking Coal

• New Coking Coal

• Non-Coking Coal

• Washed and beneficiated coal

• Middlings

• Rejects

• CIL/LTC Coal

• Coal Fines/Coke Fines

• Soft pitch/light oil/heavy oil/tar

Neyveli Lignite Corporation:

Neyveli Lignite Corporation shortly called as NLC is a government-owned company that came into existence in the year 1956 and the headquarters of the company is located in the city of Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is a Navratna Company with coal based thermal plant at the city of Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu. This coal based thermal plant of NLC has the capacity to produce 1000 MWs of power as a joint venture project between NTPL and TNEB. The company also has a coal-based power plant in the state of Orissa with a production capacity of 2000 MW in joint venture with Hindalco and Mahanadi Coal Fields Limited.

Singareni Collieries Company Limited:

Singareni Collieries Company Limited came into existence way back in the year 1871 and the mining rights of this company was acquired by the Hyderabad (Deccan) Company for exploitation of coal found in the Yellandu area of the state of Andhra Pradesh. The company was formed with its present name in the year 1920 on the 23rd of December as a public sector company under the Hyderabad Companies Act. This company acquired all the liabilities and assets of the Hyderabad (Deccan) Company Limited and majority of shares of this company was acquired by the then State of Hyderabad in the year 1945. The company has coal reserves in different parts of the state of Andhra Pradesh like Khammam, Warangal, Karimnagar and Adilabad. They are using different types of mining techniques like high wall mining, underground mining and opencast mining.

In India, since coal mining technology is acting as a major source for production of electricity, there will always be demand for production of coal since the power generation sector is dependent on coal manufacturing sector for production of power to meet the ever growing demand for power supply in different states of the nation.