West Bokaro Coalfield

West Bokaro Coalfield is located mostly in Ramgarh district and partly in Hazaribagh district in the Indian state of Jharkhand.

Overview
In 1917, L.S.S.O’Malley described the coalfields in the upper reaches of the Damodar as follows: "Near the western boundary of Jharia field is that of Bokaro, covering" 220 sqmi, "with an estimated content of 1,500 million tons; close by… is the Ramgarh field (40 square miles), in which, however, coal is believed to be of inferior quality. A still larger field in the same district is that called Karanpura, which extends over" 544 sqmi "and has an estimated capacity of 9,000 million tons."

Location
The Bokaro coalfield lies between 23° 45’ and 23° 50’ North latitude and 85° 30’ and 86° 03’ East longitude. It spreads 65 km from east to west and 10 to 16 km from north to south. Bokaro West and Bokaro East are two subdivisions of the field separated almost in the middle by Lugu Hill (height 960.9 m).

Bokaro River passes through the West Bokaro and East Bokaro coalfields.

West Bokaro Coalfield covers an area of 259 km2 and has total coal reserves of 4,246.30 million tonnes.

Tata Steel owns and operates the open-cast West Bokaro colliery. It has the distinction of commissioning the country's first coal washery in 1951.

Reserves
Geological reserves in the West Bokaro Coalfield in million tonnes as on 1/4/2010:

Transport
In 1927, the Central India Coalfields Railway opened the Gomoh-Barkakana line. It was extended to Daltonganj in 1929. Later these lines were amalgamated with East Indian Railway.