Bokaro, Nov. 24: Prospects of early mining from the closed Parbatpur coal mine in Chandankyari block, 30km from Bokaro, have brightened after yesterday's high-level visit to the site by a team of technocrats to inspect the arrangements.

The mines, owned by Electrosteel Steels (ESL), were closed after the 2014 Supreme Court ruling on irregular allotments. The Parbatpur coal block was handed over to the Union government instead of being put up for re-auctioning.

Highly placed sources confided that with full production at the block, using good quality coal, Bokaro Steel plant could earn around Rs 600 crore.

The team headed by Steel Authority of India (SAIL) director of raw materials and logistics Kalyan Maity, along with SAIL general manager G. Jha, BCCL officials Sadhan Banerjee and N. Prasad and MECON's G.S. Marcha visited the coal washery, open cast area of Parbatpur, haulage shop and coal transportation points.

The members discussed various issues, including the survey map of the coal block, land acquisition, CBM eruptions, employment issues as more than 300 people were working at the plant when it was closed, local agitation over mining and displacement.

ESL started mining from the blocks in 2006 and was producing 230 million tonne of coal per year, when they were shut.

The government, after a cabinet approval, handed over the block to SAIL, which was in dire need of quality coal for its plants and was importing coal from Australia, South Africa and Canada.

Bokaro steel plant chief of communications Sanjay Tewary said the meeting and inspection by the technocrats were kept confidential. "No senior officer of the plant was aware of it. We were also taken by surprise," he admitted.

High-level sources revealed that since SAIL was to take a final call on when and where to resume coal mining, officials of its Burnpur unit Mecon were asked to meet at Dhanbad from where they reached Parbatpur.