Introduction:

The Ledo OCP ( area 0.85 Sq. Km.) situated in Northern part of Makum Coalfield situated at 10Kms North East of Margherita town i.e. HQ. of NEC (CIL) and 60Km. south east of Tinsukia district. The area is connected to the rest of the country by NH.38 and BG Rly line which extends upto Tirap siding which is 1.5 Km of the west of the property.

The project is surrounded by Ledo town in the west, Ledo pani nullah in the east and Tirap OCP in the South Eastern side. Sixty percent of the area under reference is builtup area and occupied by surface structures i.e. Rly line, NH, Colliery workers residential quarters, brick factory etc.

The project is planned to be executed in form of three pits namely Pit I, Pit II and Pit III . At present Pit II is in operation.

Geology:

Ledo Mechanised OCP block, covering an area of 0.85 sq km, is situated in the Northern part of Makum Coalfield and is defined by North latitude 27o- 17’-25” and 27o-17’-50” and East longitude 95o – 45’ to 95o-45’-45 ” falling in the Survey of India Toposheet No.83M/1.

The coal bearing Tikak-parbat formation in Ledo mechanised OCP is disposed as an elongated E-W trending isolated closed “Synformal basin” surrounded by older Baragolai formation. The E-W trending longer axis stretches about 1.5 km while the N-S trending shorter axis stretches just about 300m. The western closure of the synformal basin is wider than that of the eastern closure. The strate in general strike in an E-W direction in both the limbs with local swings leading to development of minor warps. Existence of four seams viz. ‘60 ft’, ‘7ft/new seam’, ‘20ft’, and ‘5ft’ seam has been established in this block. The bottom most 60’ seam is the most important coal seam. The other coal seams are impersistent and have very limited area of disposition. The 60’ seam is almost virgin in the entire block except a small linear stretch in the southern limb where the seam has been extracted manually through OC method. The 60’ seam occurs splitted at most places.

The 7’/New seam is not well developed within the area. The 20’ seam is restricted to two small axial regions in the east and the west. 5’ seam is the youngest seam developed in this region and its development is restricted to very small patches in the eastern part only.

A net geological reserve of 6.22 MT from 60’ seam only has been considered for the purpose of estimating the quarriable coal. Available small quantity of quarriable coal reserves from the other younger seams have been taken as an overburden and may be considered as bonus over the total resources of 60’ seam.

Reserves and Coal Characteristics:

Total Reserve: 6.22 MT

Mineable Reserve: 1.68 MT