50 Coal Mines Win Five-Star Rating for FY 2024-25 at Raipur

The Ministry of Coal held its Annual Star Rating Awards Ceremony for FY 2024-25 at Raipur in Chhattisgarh on 2 November 2026. The ceremony recognises mines that perform well across safety, environmental management, scientific mining, productivity and community welfare. The chief guest was Shri Satish Chandra Dubey, Union Minister of State for Coal and Mines, and the audience included officials of the ministry along with representatives of Coal India Limited and its subsidiaries, NLC India Limited and Singareni Collieries Company Limited.

Who was rated

Altogether 50 coal mines were awarded Five-Star Ratings for the year. Of these, 10 mines finished first, second or third in their respective categories, each with a score above 93 per cent. The awards cover both opencast and underground mines, which are judged separately because their working conditions differ.

The toppers

• Northern Coalfields Limited and NTPC took the First Prize in the opencast category
• Singareni Collieries Company Limited took the First Prize in the underground category
• Western Coalfields Limited earned special appreciation for having the largest number of Five-Star rated mines among all Coal India subsidiaries
• Northern Coalfields Limited and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited were appreciated for holding high scores in successive rating rounds as well as in production

What was said

The Minister of State described the Star Rating Programme as an instrument that builds healthy competition among mines and pushes them to keep improving. He urged coal companies to treat it not as an inspection but as a chance for self-assessment and learning, and asked them to adopt safer and more modern technology, strengthen mine operations and maintain proper records. He called for wider participation in the rating exercise for FY 2025-26.

Shri Sanoj Kumar Jha, Additional Secretary in the ministry, said in his keynote that the programme has grown into a platform for recognising performance and for settling best practices across the sector, and that structured assessment helps set benchmarks and encourages transparency. He asked coal companies to exchange knowledge and practical solutions so that the gains of one mine become a lesson for others. Shri Satish Kumar, the Coal Controller, said in his welcome address that the framework also keeps attention on worker safety, land restoration and the welfare of project-affected families.

Hackathon on research

Winners and runners-up of the Hackathon on R&D 2026, held on the theme NextGen AI for Smart Mining, were also recognised at the event. The winning entries came from CSIR-NEERI in Nagpur; Technowave Solutions Private Limited of Ranchi working with IIT (ISM) Dhanbad; CSIR-CLRI in Chennai with a Kolkata-based partner firm; and a consortium built around CSIR-CMERI in Durgapur with C-DAC Thiruvananthapuram and a Ranchi firm. Their entries used artificial intelligence to tackle problems of efficiency, mine safety and environmental management in the coal sector.