Published on India Environment Portal | News, reports, documents, blogs, data, analysis on environment & development | India, South Asia (http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in)

Home > Featured Articles > Damodar - Ten years after > Damodar - Ten years after

 Damodar - Ten years after [1]

Additional image:: 

Also read: Damodar - Ten years ago [2]
Dhanbad town exists for one reason: coal. This much becomes quickly clear to me. A fine layer of coal dust covers everything in the hotel I have put up in, and the manager has assumed I have something to do with the coal business. Why else should I have come to Dhanbad? I tell him I am not interested in coal, but in the river Damodar. Damodar? But that’s also full of coal. Touché. He smiles: so you will be going to the Telmucho bridge? I nod. He nods, too. It seems all pollution people, as he puts it, go there.

Telmucho bridge is an hour’s ride from Dhanbad. A minute out of town and I am passing coalfields. Dhanbad is on the edge of the Jharia coalfields. It sprawls over 450 square kilometres (sq km) and is one of India’s biggest coalfields. A few more minutes and I pass a bccl (Bharat Coking Coal Limited) housing colony. Its inhabitants have been asked to evacuate their houses because underground mine fires have come too close for comfort.



From the bridge the river looks choked. On either side of the main channel, as far as I can see, there are huge heaps of loosely dumped earth. These heaps are called the ‘overburden’, the upper layer of soil and rock removed in open-cast mining to get to the coal below. Perched precariously, they certainly seem to overburden the river

Publication Date: 
14/03/2003
Down to Earth [3]
11
20030315
0
Tags:
Pollution [4], Pollution Control [5], River Pollution [6], Industrial Dispersal [7], Mining [8], Damodar [9], Water Quality [10], Ganga Action Plan [11], Coal [12], Solid Waste [13], Oil [14], Thermal Power Plants [15], India [16], Dhanbad (D) [17], Jharkhand [18], Statistics [19], Fly Ash [20], Coal Industry [21]

Technology Partners: MimirTech

Source URL: http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/feature-article/damodar-ten-years-after

Links:
[1] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/feature-article/damodar-ten-years-after
[2] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/full6.asp%3Ffoldername%3D19930131%26amp%3Bfilename%3DAnal%26amp%3Bsec_id%3D7%26amp%3Bsid%3D1
[3] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/newspaper/down-earth
[4] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/pollution
[5] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/pollution-control
[6] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/river-pollution
[7] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/industrial-dispersal
[8] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/mining
[9] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/damodar
[10] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/water-quality
[11] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/ganga-action-plan
[12] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/coal
[13] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/solid-waste
[14] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/oil
[15] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/thermal-power-plants
[16] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/india
[17] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/dhanbad-d
[18] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/jharkhand
[19] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/statistics
[20] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/fly-ash
[21] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/coal-industry