India, Feb. 5 -- The Deocha - Pachami coal block in West Bengal's Birbhum district, considered to be the largest coal block in India, will start functioning from Thursday, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday.

Addressing the inaugural session of the 8th Bengal Global Business Summit , a flagship industrial summit of the West Bengal government, Banerjee said, "Deucha -Pachami is one of the largest coal blocks in the world. It has a reserve of 1,240 million tonnes of coal and 2,600 million tonnes of Basalt. Work will begin tomorrow. Everything is ready. There will be no crisis of power in the next 100 years."

Banerjee said that many countries are interested (in this project) and they may speak to the chief secretar...