Hyderabad, Sept. 22 -- Heritage conservationists in Telangana are apprehensive about an impending threat to Ramappa temple, a 13th-century monument and the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in the state, located at Palampet village in Mulug district, from the proposed deep opencast coal mining project by state-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL).

Presently under the control of the Archaeological Survey of India, the heritage monument acknowledged as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on July 25, 2021, is hardly 5 km away from the open-cast mine of Singareni Collieries at Venkatapur village.

The proposed open-cast coal mine is planned to extract an estimated 40.4 million tonnes of coal over approximately 19 years across forest, ...