The Ministry of Coal (MoC) has served a show cause notice on Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), Hindalco Industries Ltd and Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) for the inordinate delay in the development of Talabira-II coal block under the command area of MCL.
The ministry in its notice dated September 29, has directed these three companies to respond to the showcause notice within a period of 30 days as to why the delay in the development of the coal block should not be held as violation of the terms and conditions of the allotment of the block.
If the companies fail to respond, it would be presumed by the ministry that they have no explanation to offer and appropriate action would be taken for de-allocation of the said block.
When contacted by Business Standard, a top MCL official said, “We have got the showcause notice of the coal ministry and would be filing our response soon. The development of the coal block has been held up due to pending forest clearance. Moreover, the Talabira-II coal block has been declared as a no-go area but despite that we are going ahead with the development of the coal block. As fas as land acquisition is concerned, notification under Section 7 (1) has been issued”
The Talabira-II coal block was allocated on November 10, 2005 for power generation of 700 MW by Aditya Aluminium, a division of Hindalco Industries Ltd and 2000 MW power plant of Neyveli Lignite Corporation at Ib valley.
In order to expedite the development of the coal block, various review meetings were held from time to time with the representatives of MCL, NCL and Hindalco Industries.
Also Read
In the review meeting held on the development of the coal block held on June 22-23, 2009, it was noted that the mining lease land acquisition and forest clearance for the project were pending.
In the last review meeting held on July 20-21 this year, it was noticed that no serious efforts have been made to develop the coal block even though repeated assurances were made for the same.
The bank guarantee for the project is yet to be submitted and the EMP (Environmental Management Plan) clearance is pending. Since the important milestones for the coal mining project like mining lease, land acquisition, forest clearance and EMP clearance are yet to be achieved, the ministry has inferred that the companies are not serious about the timely development of the coal block.
The land acquisition process for the coal block which was supposed to be completed by November 2008 is pending. Moreover, coal production from the block is yet to take off.