N. Sridhar, Chairman and Managing Director of Singareni Collieries Company Ltd received the Golden Peacock Innovative Product/Service Award for 2015 for “processed Overburden and utilisation as stowing and construction material.”
The award was handed over by Sheik Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture, Youth and Social Development, UAE at the Golden Peacock Award Function held in Dubai on April 20.
In the process of environment protection, large amount of overburden (waste earth material) is generated while extracting coal in opencast mining. The top soil of 30 to 40 cm having nutrients is separately stock piled for re-use or spreading on the back filled areas for sustaining natural vegetation and plantation.
An innovative initiative has been taken for processing Overburden material for generating material equivalent to sand for “stowing and construction.” It started processing Overburden Plant at Bhupalpally in 2010. The processed material is suitable for civil constructions and used for stowing in underground mines by SCCL replacing river sand.
Thus far 3.5 lakh cu.m of processed Overburden has been used in the underground mines. SCCL is proposing 6 more such plants with a total capacity of 21 lakh cu.m per annum. This material has been certified as a green initiative by the collieries.