Methane Mitigation in Indian Coal Mining

Association of methane with coal poses a serious explosion risk in underground coal mining. Besides, it is a potent green house gases significantly contributing to global warming. Therefore, its commercial exploitation is being widely recognised as (a) a fuel resource to bridge the energy gap (b) making coal mining safer (c) providing cleaner energy and (d) checking the building of green house gases. Indian coal seams has a vast Coal Bed Methane (CBM) potential in various coalfields but we lagged behind because of knowledge gap, inadequate funds and non-availability of suitable technology. To overcome this, Government of India has recently taken a very positive step and invited non-governmental participation by international competitive bidding on attractive terms to develop several commercially feasible CBM blocks for its commercial exploitation. The paper presents the distribution and content profile of India’s vast CBM potential and status of efforts to exploit it.