Varanasi (UP), Jan 17 (IANS): The Indian Institute of Technology, BHU, with the support of the Northern Coalfields Limited under an MoU with them, is going to establish a new research centre at the oldest mining engineering department in the country which came into existence in 1923.

The Coal Quality Management and Utilisation Research Centre will be the first of its kind in India under an academia-industry MoU. It will be equipped with a state-of-the-art facility for conducting research on clean coal technology to enhance the quality of coal, with the facility for determining the quality and grade of coal for stakeholders and traders.

IIT-BHU Director Prof Pramod Kumar Jain said that the need for clean coal with sustainable mining and lowering of carbon footprint of mining was identified as a global and national research theme and keeping the same in mind, the Coal Quality Management and Utilisation Centre was envisioned.

He said that this scientific effort and collective endeavours of IIT-BHU and NCL would help to realise the vision of an affordable, efficient and compact reliable clean coal supply to coal consumers and reduction of carbon emissions as per the Paris Agreement.

According to him, the objective of the centre was to create knowledge and develop human resources through doctoral research, post graduate dissertations and B. Tech projects and professionally to cater to the needs of the industry for cleaner coal availability.

IIT-BHU, through the MoU with NCL, has already started joint PhD programmes where laboratory facility, field data will be used to make coal mining technology and environment more technologically viable and economically feasible with environment-friendly mining.