ABSTRACT
It has been estimated that over 70% of the larger mining operations had waste dump failures of some kind or others (CMPDIL, 2007; Upadhyay & Singh, 1994). Despite the fact that the parameters like resources recovery, mining cast, safety and environment affects stability of waste dumps. Very little work has been done in this area. Very limited published information is available on spoil dumps stability. The physical and strength properties of spoil, appropriate field and laboratory tests procedure or appropriate methods of stability analysis are not published regularly (Tiwari, 1990). Economically, stable outside and backfilled dumps will have to be designed to address on-going issue of dump failure in big opencast mines. Assessment of the primary factors and techniques for evaluating slope stability is a necessary step in the
1 INTRODUCTION
Mineral share in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of India is around 2.1%. The contribution of minerals in the GDP of other mineral producing countries is 4-6%. The government of India and private sectors are infusing huge capital in this sector. It is expected that there will be three-fold increase in share of contribution from mineral sector in GDP by 2016-17. Globally, coal accounts for 26% of the primary energy consumption whereas it accounts for 56% of India’s total energy supply. The Integrated Energy Policy (IEP) of India had re-affirmed dominance of coal in the coming decades (Indian Budget, 2008). India will need 905 MT of coal by the financial year 2016-17 to meet the energy demand. Open cast mining plays a vital role in meeting of this huge demand. Coal production from open-cast mines have increased phenomenally and presently about 90% coal is being produced from opencast mining to meet the energy demand. The integrated energy policy of India has also indicated that in years to come the coal will be major contributor in energy supply. This indicates that large volume waste material will be generated from mining operations in opencast coal mines.
