The equipment includes a 12CM15-01D continuous miner, a quadbolter, a ramtrack single mast roofbolter and two 10SC32B shuttle cores for the Chirimiri mine, located 200km north of Bilaspur in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

The Joy contract includes full after sales support operations with spare parts, repairs and overhauls as well as managerial, engineering and operator support in running the operations locally over a five-year period.

More than 90% of the underground coal mined by Coal India is produced by hand-won or semi-mechanised room and pillar mining methods using small 1 tonne capacity side discharge loaders.

Joy said vast amounts of coal lying in developed pillars, left over from previous blast and load operations, may be extracted using continuous miners.

Joy has offices in Calcutta and Hyderabad, and also offers full aftermarket services including overhaul and repair, and spares facilities for roof support hydraulics with testing to OEM standards at Durgapur and Hyderabad.