India has the fifth largest coal reserves in the world. Of the total reserves, nearly 88% are non-coking coal reserves, while tertiary coal reserves account for a meager 0.5%, and the balance is coking coal. Mining in India is a major industrial activity which contributes significantly to the economy of India. This book introduces the reader to fundamentals of coal mining and moves on to cover other important topics in detail. Some of these are recent changes in legal framework of coal regulation, captive coal blocks mining policy, e–auction by competitive bidding of coal blocks allocation, agencies involved in coal governance, methods and techniques of exploration, procedure of sampling, proximate & ultimate analysis, grade declaration, pit head price, DMF, NMET, environmental impact of exploration, mine development, mine closure activities and mining based industry. In addition to this, Dr. Patel has dedicated his life’s research experience through Chapter-9, where he gives a detailed description of the geology, structure, details of coal seams and resources of all coalfields located in Chhattisgarh. Dr. Patel has drawn upon from his rich expertise in coal exploration during his career as exploration geologist in the Directorate of Geology and Mining (DGM) in erstwhile Madhya Pradesh and later on, in DGM, Chhattisgarh. The book is a sum total of Dr. Patel’s professional experience along with being an accurate text on mineral commodities and its auctioning as per the present guidelines of the Central and State Governments. This presents the whole picture on coal as a natural product of degradation of once luxuriant vegetation, which existed around 250 million years ago in big swampy terrain, and its conversion to coal as seams and interstratified bands within the fluvial sedimentary sequence. This publication will be extremely useful for officials and professionals engaged in coal mining activities, coal-based industrialists and students of Geology.