Coal rush saga: the scandal that singed a king in Singareni Premium

Singareni coal mines in Telangana, rich in history and controversy, set for auction amid privatisation efforts.

The Indian government is set to auction coal-bearing seams of Singareni coal mines, the reserves of which stretch 350 square kilometres in Telangana. While the current mining company is a joint venture between the government of India and Telangana State, the auction will create another stakeholder for the mining operations in the region. 

A similar privatisation effort happened nearly 140 years ago when another entity gained the concession agreement. It was called Hyderabad (Deccan) Mining Company, Limited.

Beginning as a police officer in Kalyan in present day Karnataka, Abdul Haq later titled Diler Jung became the éminence grise when Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan was a young man in the later part of 1800s. He negotiated the deed for bringing Railways to Nizam’s Dominion, he crafted the concessionaire agreement to mine the coal of Singareni. Then everything fell apart as the rumour mills started churning.

The Singareni coal mines or as the locals remember Yellanadu coal seam was well known. Telangana was a centre for artisanal steel for centuries with craftspersons in Nirmal, Nizamabad creating batches of steel using coal, wood and iron ore. But it drew the colonial notice in 1871 when William King of the Geological Survey of India visited the Nizam’s Dominion and reached Singareni. “The present field is situated … near the villages of Rumpaid, Yellindallapad (Yellandu), Hooserakapully (Usirkayalapalli), and Ragabonagoodium (Ragaboinagudem), in the eastern part of the Kundyaconda talook. Its southern extremity is about four or five miles east of the large village of Singareny, and it may be as well to give this name to the field,” he wrote in March 30, 1872.

Within a few years this would be transformed into a coal rush. 

The coal was there but it was the nature of the mining agreement and investors involved that became a hub of the scandal. The British who were building a railway line to Secunderabad from Wadi wanted to extend it to Singareni to transport the coal. Abdul Haq successfully negotiated the agreement for the railway line built with Nizam’s money but executed by the British. Then he played a different gambit. Abdul Haq and his associates created a company called Hyderabad (Deccan) Mining Company Limited. Haq secured a 99-year lease for Watson and Stewart on January 7, 1886, this had the sanction of Secretary of State, and was signed on July 27 of the same year. The capital of the Company was to be £1,000,000, in 100,000 shares of £10 each. Of these 85,000 were allotted to the concessionaires, Messrs. Watson and Stewart for their role in securing the concession. 

A year later, staying at the upscale Alexandra Hotel in London, Abdul Haq wrote to W.C. Watson on June 2, 1887: “I am instructed by the Government of His Highness the Nizam to purchase 10,000 £10 shares of the Hyderabad (Deccan) Mining Company, Limited. As you are the agent of the Government here, I write to ask you to be so good as to arrange for the purchase of these shares at the lowest possible price, not exceeding £12 per share, the Government having decided to invest only £120,000 in these shares.” The sentence was prove very expensive for Abdul Haq’s career.