The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which traditionally has been tasked with guarding vast open-cast mines and logistics corridors, has now been given the status of as statutory enforcement agency.
The status is as per the recent amendments to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 (MMDR Act), which formally grants the CISF direct enforcement capabilities akin to the Railway Protection Force.
Previously, the CISF was restricted to catching perpetrators and handing them over to local police—a process often plagued by procedural delays that the coal mafia exploited to evade justice.
Under the new framework, authorised CISF officers are empowered to directly file written complaints before competent courts, giving the force greater legal authority to enforce the law. CISF officers can now bypass local police dependencies and independently search vehicles or premises suspected of concealing illegally extracted coal, official sources said.
This seamless chain of enforcement guarantees that the certainty of prosecution is now as absolute as the certainty of detection. This unprecedented statutory backing shall exponentially increase the enforcement value of the CISF on the ground, creating a powerful deterrent against organised coal theft, CISF said in a statement.
The experience of the Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) Kargali unit in Jharkhand’s Bermo coal belt offers a compelling case study of scale, sophistication, and persistence of coal theft in India’s mining sector.
Under the intensified anti-theft campaigns in the Kargali area, the CISF has drastically escalated its operations.
In the year 2025, the force seized approximately 1,100 tonnes of illegal coal valued at around Rs 24 lakh, which is more than four times the 250 tonnes recovered in the previous year, i.e. 2024.
The frequency of raids also saw a massive jump from 128 operations in 2024 to 220 in 2025.
Furthermore, 102 vehicles involved in smuggling were intercepted and seized in 2025, an eight-fold increase compared to just 12 vehicles the previous year.
These stringent actions in this single unit alone have saved the public sector an estimated Rs 3 to Rs 4 crore in potential annual revenue losses.
