Stranded between the state and the market: 'Uneconomic' mine closure in the raniganj coal belt

Coal India Limited (CIL) is a profit-making Public Sector Unit (PSU), a ‘Maharatna’, literally, a ‘fine gem’, for the Indian state. Its high status gives rise to the question: ‘how can a corporation renowned for corruption and inefficiency be a profitable enterprise?’ To answer this question, one needs to explore not just where the costs are concentrated but also go below the claim to investigate the extent of substance these claims have. To that aim, this chapter explores in detail how the costs of protecting the environment are overlooked by the industry, and the ways in which CIL identifies which mines under its management are inefficient and uneconomic in order to remove them from its profit-seeking agenda. It is an important task to explore the simple economics in order to consider how this stateowned enterprise, and hence the state, values the environment.