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Ranchi / Dhanbad / Chatra, March 2026
THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM
Jharkhand sits on top of some of the largest coal reserves in the world. The Jharia coalfield alone, stretching across Dhanbad district, holds reserves that helped power India’s industrial revolution. The Bokaro-Dhanbad corridor is one of the most mineral-rich strips of land in all of Asia.
But beneath the official mining statistics and government royalty figures, a parallel economy operates. An underworld of illegal extraction, unlicensed transport, toll extortion, and money laundering that an investigative operation by Aaj Tak in December 2025 estimated at Rs 20,000 crore a year in Jharkhand alone.
That is not a rounding error. That is a criminal industry the size of a mid-sized state budget, running in plain sight across Dhanbad, Bokaro, Chatra, Hazaribagh, and Ramgarh districts every single day.
WHAT THE ED FOUND IN NOVEMBER 2025
On November 21, 2025, the Enforcement Directorate conducted one of its largest-ever operations against the coal mafia simultaneous raids at more than 40 locations across Jharkhand and West Bengal. Over 100 ED officials began searching homes, offices, coke plants, and illegal toll collection booths at 6 a.m. The operation ran through the day.
What they recovered tells the story of how the illegal coal business operates and what it generates.
From premises in Jharkhand alone, ED officials recovered cash worth more than Rs 2.2 crore and seized 120 land deeds. From West Bengal, where the coal from Jharkhand’s mines was being moved and sold, officials recovered cash and jewellery worth more than Rs 8 crore. A second round of reporting from the same operation put the combined total at more than Rs 14 crore in cash and jewellery, plus 150 land deeds.
The people whose premises were searched included Narendra Kharka, Yudhistar Ghosh, Krishna Murari Kayal, Chinmayi Mondal, Rajkoshore Yadav, and others. In Dhanbad, a prominent coal businessman named L.B. Singh reportedly released his pet dogs on the ED team to prevent officials from entering his compound. The dogs held up the operation for several minutes before security staff could intervene. The Singh family had prior history with central investigation agencies the CBI had raided their properties roughly a decade earlier in the BCCL tender scam, during which allegations of firing at officers had been made.
The targets of the November 2025 raids were described by ED officials as networks involved in illegal coal extraction, unauthorised transport, widespread coal theft, and extortion at multiple points in the supply chain. The combined financial loss to the government was estimated in “hundreds of crores.” Forensic examination of seized digital records and accounts, ED officials said, was underway to determine the full scale.
HOW THE MAFIA NETWORK ACTUALLY WORKS
The illegal coal chain in Jharkhand is not a single criminal act. It is a system with many moving parts, each of which is difficult to prosecute alone.
Coal is extracted from abandoned mines or from the edges of active leases without authorisation. This is the entry point of the network. At the next stage, the coal is transported on trucks, often at night, through routes that include privately operated checkposts and toll nakas where fees are collected in cash by mafia-affiliated operators not by the government. The coal then moves to markets in West Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha, where it is mixed with legitimately traded coal and sold. Revenue is stored in cash, land deeds, and jewellery exactly what the ED found in November 2025.
Aaj Tak’s Operation Sarkar-2 investigation, aired in December 2025, documented this chain in Jharkhand specifically and found that the illegal coal trade in the state had not only persisted through years of crackdowns but had grown. The investigation found connections between the trade networks and political patronage at multiple levels.
The Jharkhand High Court, in a hard-hitting order in October 2024, noted that there was apparent inaction by police in registering cases related to illegal coal mining in Dhanbad, and directed the CBI to register a preliminary inquiry. Critically, the High Court noted that allegations had been made against senior police officials of the state with regard to the illegal mining. The Supreme Court stayed that High Court order in October 2024 on an appeal filed by the Jharkhand government, and issued notice to parties but the underlying allegation, that police officials may be part of the protection system for illegal coal mining, remained unresolved on record.
THE LAND: WHAT IS LEFT BEHIND
The people who pay most directly for the illegal coal economy are not investigators or policymakers. They are the families living on land above and around the coal seams.
In the Piparwar operational area in Chatra district, and across the coal belt stretching through Hazaribagh, Ramgarh, and Bokaro, The India Forum documented in January 2026 what open-cast mining both legal and illegal has done to the landscape and to communities. Every village in the Piparwar region is directly or indirectly entangled with the coal industry. Men and women break coal by hand and carry it in baskets for wages that are meagre by any standard. Coal dust settles on everything. The primary source of pollution is coal transportation the constant movement of trucks across dirt and village roads but blasting, drilling, and the dumping of overburden, the upper layer of soil removed to reach the coal, also contributes. Noise from machines causes hearing damage in workers. Coal dust causes lung disease. The Damodar river, which flows through this region, now receives more than 40 tonnes of coal washery waste every day, making it one of the most polluted rivers in India.
The Centre for Science and Environment rated Dhanbad’s Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index at 78.63 well above the threshold at which an area is classified as critically polluted. The air index alone was 64.50. Water and land indices also exceeded safe levels. BCCL and SAIL had to shut down some of their coal washeries after they were found discharging effluents directly into the Damodar.
The displacement numbers are staggering. Between 1981 and 1985, Central Coalfields Limited alone acquired 1,20,300 acres of land, displacing 32,750 families. The Damodar Valley Corporation, the Bokaro Steel Plant, and subsequent mining expansions uprooted thousands more. Historically, the Jharkhand government’s own Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, 2008 acknowledged that more than 55 percent of Jharkhand’s land is under the Fifth Schedule protecting tribal communities yet these communities have consistently been the ones sacrificed for the resources beneath their feet.
The pattern has not improved with time. The Gondalpara Opencast Coal Mine in Hazaribagh district allotted to Adani Enterprises in 2020 spans five villages in Barkagaon. Villagers there have been protesting for two years, refusing to leave, saying the land was signed away without their consent. The government invoked an emergency clause under the Land Acquisition Act to speed up land seizure without completing consultation requirements. Courts have said this emergency provision requires genuine urgency. Critics say the urgency in Barkagaon was not a public necessity but a corporate schedule.
WHO ACTUALLY DIES IN THESE MINES
The most invisible cost of illegal coal mining is paid in lives.
In June 2023, a mine collapse in Dhanbad killed three people, including a child. Villagers across the coal belt dig what are called rat-hole mines tunnels roughly four feet high cut into abandoned mines to extract residual coal. Reuters documented this practice in detail. These tunnels have no support, no ventilation, and no safety equipment. Suffocation and collapse are constant risks. These are not desperate people who do not understand the danger. They are people with no other economic option.
SwitchON Foundation reported in 2021 that Jharkhand had one of India’s worst environmental performance scores, with an estimated 100.2 deaths per 1 lakh people attributable to air pollution. Rapid industrialisation and mining had pushed particulate concentrations far beyond safe limits. A field study in West Bengal’s Salanpur area found that coal miners suffered significantly higher rates of pneumoconiosis, lung cancer, asthma, and hypertension than residents of non-mining villages. The study found that 93 percent of respondents in mining villages believed illegal coal mining had a direct adverse impact on their health.
THE COURTS, THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE GAP
The legal system in Jharkhand has tried to address the problem. The High Court has issued orders. The Supreme Court has issued notices. The ED has conducted raids. The state government has promised special drives.
And yet the Aaj Tak Operation Sarkar-2 investigation in December 2025 still estimates the illegal coal trade at Rs 20,000 crore a year. The November 2025 ED raids the largest in recent memory recovered what amounts to a fraction of one day’s illegal revenue.
The gap between the size of the problem and the scale of the response is not a coincidence. It is a consequence of the structure of the illegal coal industry itself. When the businesses being raided have the financial capacity to pay off multiple layers of the enforcement system, when land deeds and cash and jewellery can be moved quickly enough that most of it escapes seizure, and when court proceedings take years while the extraction continues daily, the enforcement calendar moves far slower than the criminal one.
The Jharkhand government in 2022 installed CCTV cameras at affected spots and launched special drives against illegal mining. Neither measure has demonstrably reduced the scale of the operation.
WHAT WOULD ACTUALLY HELP
Researchers who have studied illegal mining across India’s coal belt consistently identify three changes that make a real difference, none of which are quick or politically easy.
The first is independent, real-time monitoring of all active and abandoned mines, with data that is available publicly and not managed by the same department responsible for granting leases. Satellite surveillance, already used in limited ways by the Mining Surveillance System for non-coal minerals, needs to be extended to coal seams and acted upon immediately when violations are detected.
The second is serious rehabilitation of abandoned mine land. Rat-hole mining and illegal extraction from closed pits persists because there are no barriers to entry and no economic alternatives for communities that have lost their agricultural land to previous rounds of displacement. Properly sealing and reclaiming abandoned mine areas, combined with livelihood programmes for affected communities, removes both the opportunity and the necessity.
The third is enforcing existing tribal land protection laws. The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act and the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act exist to prevent exactly the kind of land acquisition without consent that has happened repeatedly in Jharkhand. Enforcing them consistently including against well-capitalised corporate applicants would change the balance between communities and extraction industries.
None of this requires new laws. The laws are there. What is needed is the political decision to enforce them against people who have the money and connections to resist enforcement.
Jharkhand’s coal is not going anywhere. Neither, it seems, is the mafia that has built a Rs 20,000 crore business on top of it.
SOURCE LOG
Rs 20,000 crore illegal coal trade in Jharkhand, Operation Sarkar-2 investigation, coal mining mafia political connections: Aaj Tak, “Operation Sarkar-2: Jharkhand mein koyle ka kala khel,” December 30, 2025, aajtak.in
ED November 21 2025 raids 40+ locations Jharkhand and West Bengal, 100+ officials, 6 a.m. start, Narendra Kharka/Yudhistar Ghosh/Krishna Murari Kayal/Chinmayi Mondal/Rajkoshore Yadav targeted, Rs 2.2 crore cash + 120 land deeds from Jharkhand, Rs 8 crore+ cash/jewellery from West Bengal, illegal extraction/transport/theft/extortion, “hundreds of crores” government loss, L.B. Singh Dhanbad dogs incident, prior CBI BCCL tender scam raid history, 18 Jharkhand + 24 Bengal premises, raids at homes/offices/coke plants/checkposts/nakas: The Tribune, “ED raids Bengal, Jharkhand sites in illegal coal mining case,” November 21, 2025, tribuneindia.com | The420.in, “ED Conducts Mega Raids Across Jharkhand and Bengal,” November 29, 2025 | News24, November 21, 2025, news24online.com | New Indian Express, November 22, 2025
Second round figure Rs 14 crore cash/jewellery + 150 land deeds Dhanbad and Dumka: 22Scope, “ED Raid in Jharkhand-Bengal: Dhanbad and Dumka,” November 23, 2025, 22scope.com
Jharkhand High Court October 2024 order directing CBI probe Dhanbad illegal coal mining, noted police inaction registering cases, allegations against senior police officials, Supreme Court stayed order October 18 2024 on Jharkhand government appeal, CBI directed to register preliminary inquiry: ETV Bharat, “SC Stays Jharkhand HC Order Directing CBI Probe Into Illegal Coal Mining,” October 18, 2024, etvbharat.com
Damodar river 40 tonnes coal washery waste daily, one of India’s most polluted, Badmahi river threatened, Hazaribagh/Chatra/Palamu/Rajmahal/Dhanbad/Ranchi all environmentally degraded, displacement: CCL 1,20,300 acres 32,750 families 1981-1985, CBAA overrides CNTA/PESA/SPTA, Gondalpara Hazaribagh five-village mine allotted Adani 2020, emergency clause invoked, villagers protesting two years, 513 hectares 40% forest 40% tenancy land: The Polis Project, “Jharkhand Villagers Resist Adani Coal Mine For 2 Years,” December 5, 2025, thepolisproject.com
Piparwar Chatra coal belt, coal dust covers everything, men and women carry coal in baskets, JCB noise pollution, overburden dumping, Dhanbad CEPI 78.63, air sub-index 64.50, BCCL/SAIL washeries shut for Damodar effluents, rat-hole mines Reuters documented, June 2023 Dhanbad mine collapse 3 dead including child: The India Forum, “Human Face of Open-Cast Coal Mining in Jharkhand,” January 21, 2026, theindiaforum.in | Pune Post investigative report, October 2025, punepost.com
SwitchON 100.2 deaths per lakh attributable to air pollution Jharkhand EPI 18.9, pneumoconiosis/lung cancer/asthma/hypertension higher in mining villages, 93% mining village residents believe illegal coal mining harms health: Pune Post investigative report, October 2025, punepost.com | SwitchON Foundation 2021 report cited therein
Dhanbad mafia historical origin trade union/mafia integration, illegal mining complementary department to nationalised CIL, Bokaro-Dhanbad-Jamshedpur mineral corridor: Sanhati, “Overview of Coal Mining in India: Investigative Report from Dhanbad Coal Fields,” sanhati.com
