The restoration of lands damaged by opencast coal mining is an increasingly important problem in a dry tropical region of India. Plantations are often employed as a measure of revegetation and management of mine spoil; thus, mitigating the mining effects on the environment. However, the choice of species for plantations has emerged as a challenge for the restoration ecologists due to insufficient data. Therefore, the primary objective of the present paper is to compare the efficiency of exotic and native species on the coal mine spoils. Previous studies on the Singrauli coalfields allowed us to compare the growth performance, standing biomass, net primary production (NPP), litterfall and decomposition rates of exotic and native species plantations. Our results showed that native species have significantly higher survival, stem-diameter, biomass and NPP as compared to exotic species plantations. However, leguminous nature of species did not affect these parameters significantly. Further, litterfall and decomposition rates were also not differed either between exotic vs native or leguminous vs non-leguminous species. Thus, exotic species either legume or non-leguminous is not very much useful in mine spoil rehabilitation as that of native species.