The Government of India (GoI) has launched a mobile application of the Ministry of Coal, “Khanan Prahari”, and a web app “Coal Mine Surveillance and Management System” (CMSMS) for reporting unauthorised coal mining activities so that the responsible Law & Order enforcing body can monitor them and take appropriate action.
- The Apps had received reports of 462 cases as of January 2023.
- CMSMS was developed by the Ministry of Coal in coordination with the Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Application and Geo-informatics (BISAG), Gandhinagar, Gujarat, and the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY).
About CMSMS:
i. The CMSMS is a satellite-based monitoring system which can serve as a signal for any coal mining activities near active coal mining sites.
ii. CMSMS, developed under the Digital India Programme, is one of the first spatially enabled surveillance systems to be created in India.
iii. It has been hosted on the National Centre of Geo-Informatics (NCoG) portal.
iv. Through the use of remote sensing and detection technology, the system seeks to establish a regime of responsive coal mining administration by curbing instances of illegal coal mining activities.
v. CMSMS provide a tool to the public for reporting through the “Khanan Prahari” mobile application.
Key Highlights:
i. The CMSMS was created as a GoI e-Governance initiative on using Space Technology to report illegal mining and take transparent action.
ii. The objective of developing and launching this CMSMS application was to track and respond to any illegal coal mining activities occurring within the leasehold boundaries of any coal mining project in the coalfield areas.
- This was done by collecting citizen complaints through the mobile app Khanan Prahari.
iii. The Khanan Prahari app was also developed by the Ministry of Coal, which enables citizens to report any illegal mining incidents through geo-tagged photographs and textual information from the place of the incident.
Measures are taken to Reduce Illegal Coal Mining operations in India:
- Concrete walls have been erected on the mouth of the abandoned mines to prevent access and illegal activities in these areas.
- Unannounced raids and inspections are being conducted jointly by security personnel and law enforcement officials from the relevant State Government
- Dumping of the overburden is being done on the outcrop zones.
- Installation of checkposts at vulnerable points.
- Training of existing security/CISF personnel, refresher training and basic training of recruits in security discipline for strengthening the security setup
- Maintaining close liaison with the State authorities.
- A committee/task force has been constituted at different levels (block level, sub-divisional level, district level, state level) in some subsidiaries of CIL to monitor different aspects of illegal mining.
State-wise details of the number of cases reported till January 2023
Recent Related News:
On 29th December 2022, Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah launched the Border Security Force (BSF) Mobile App ‘Prahari’ and revised version of 13 Manuals of BSF in New Delhi, Delhi.
About the Ministry of Coal:
Union Minister- Pralhad Joshi (Constituency- Dharwad, Karnataka)
Minister of State (MoS)- Raosaheb Patil Danve (Constituency- Jalna, Maharashtra)
