Extraction of seams thicker than four meters has always been a technical problem for the mining industry in the country as also for SCCL, which has an 8 to 10m thick coal seam all over its coalfields. Conventional Bord and Pillar development and depillaring in two sections has resulted in poor recovery & productivity, higher cost of production & risk to safety.

During the year 1980-81, SCCL looked for specialized technologies being used abroad for mechanized extraction of thick seams to obtain larger outputs with better recovery and safety from thick seams. A feasibility report was obtained from Charbonnages de France (CdF) in 1984 for extracting 8 to 10m thick seams in GDK-10 incline by “Blasting Gallery technique”.

At present, 5 Blasting Gallery (BG) units are working successfully in GDK 11, GDK 8, GDK-10, Vakilpalli and 21 incline of SCCL.

During 2011-12, the production from BG method in SCCL was 1.209 MT.