About Rajesh Kumar Chopra

Shri Rajesh Kumar Chopra is a mining industry heavyweight with over 40 years of experience in the Indian mining sector who started his career with Tata Iron & Steel Limited in Dhanbad as a Junior Engineer Trainee (JET) in 1977 - in the same year that he graduated with a degree in Mining Engineering from IIT (BHU), Varanasi.

At Novomine, he plays the pivotal role of Chief Principal Advisor and advises on mine planning and other related strategies; and in expanding our business territory. With a diverse range of skill sets, he has vast expertise in the fields of mine project planning, mine closure, project execution, mine safety, coal and mineral exploration, environmental sustainability, policy formulation, engineering advisory, environmental sustainability of mines, preparation of Mining Plans & Mine Closure Plans, Detailed Project Reports, and management of large-scale mining operations, etc.

Alongside Novomine, he also provides engineering advisory services to some other companies on a needs basis. Prior to this, he worked in different capacities with numerous government and public sector industries for almost 38 years. Some of them include Tata Iron & Steel Limited, CMPDIL, CIL (Ministry of Coal), and QCI-NABET. During his professional career, he has prepared over 50 project reports and Mining Plans for minerals such as coal, iron ore, etc. During his time at CMPDIL’s RI-V in Chhattisgarh, he designed and planned two of the largest opencast coal mining projects of India namely, Gevra OC Coal Mine (25 MTPA) and Dipka OC Coal Mine (20 MTPA). Besides his excellent expertise in coal mine planning and design, he is also skilled in his understanding of mine safety policies, regulations, guidelines, and frameworks. Due to this, he is also a member of a high-level Expert Committee on Mines Safety under the Ministry of Coal and a member of the Technical Committee for guidance in the development and update of QCI-NABET’s Accreditation Scheme for Prospecting (APA)/ Exploration Agencies and Mining Plan Preparing Agencies (MPPA) since 2020.

Due to his excellence in the industry, Shri Rajesh Kumar Chopra has during his career, visited over 16 countries - to attend government delegations, training workshops, and for work while in Nigeria and Zambia. He is a lifetime fellow of the Mining, Geological & Metallurgical Institute of India (MGMI) and the Institution of Engineers (India) (IEI). He is a life member of the MGMI since 2015 and the Mining Engineers’ Association of India since 2021 and holds a First-Class Certificate to manage coal mines granted by the Director General of Mines Safety (under the Ministry of Labour & Employment, India).