Underground Mining for Meeting Environmental Concerns – A Strategic Approach for Sustainable Mining in Future

In order to meet the ever-increasing demands of the modern society, the mineral production in our country is continuously increasing along with the scale of mining operations. However, mineral production is often not in consonance with conservation of environment and forests, since many mineral deposits including iron, manganese, chromite, bauxite and coal etc. exist below thick forests. Mining has several adverse impacts including air, water and soil pollution, socio-economic problems and effect on wildlife population and their behaviour. There has been greater stress on surface mining for boosting the production in our country, which has a larger environmental footprint compared to underground mining. As the deposits near the surface are exhausted underground mining may become cost competitive. Moreover, the technological developments in the field of underground mining, viz. mass production equipments, roof support, communication and automation is helping the decision makers to consider underground mining practice for sustainable mining while meeting environmental concerns.