Curious Case of Coal India

• launch of the eighth round of commercial coal mine auctions. Aims to increase coal output from underground mines to 100 million tonnes from the current 26 million tonnes per year
• The impact on the environment from underground coal mines is minimized because in open cast mines we have to remove the entire forest cover. Lot of loss of the agricultural land is also involved. But in underground coal mines, because of the technologies available now the forest cover is not required to be removed.
• Coal India Ltd expects coal from underground mines to be around 31-34 million tonnes in FY24, rising to 99-100 million tonnes in FY28.

Can this also benefit conveyer belt players ? I assume, underground coal mining will mean more usage for conveyer belts compared to open mining.