Coal ministry to consider Odisha's plea to allot blocks to PSUs

MCL output to be ramped up to 200 mt by 2019

The Ministry of Coal has agreed to consider the Odisha government's plea to award exclusive coal blocks for its PSUs and provide assured coal linkages to independent power producers (IPPs) that have made substantial headway on their projects.

The state government had raised the two demands after the Supreme Court’s order on August 24 that saw 204 coal blocks being deallocated. State PSUs like Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) and Odisha Power Generation Corporation (OPGC) ended up losing their coal blocks.

“I am informed that the two proposals have been sent to the Coal ministry. We will consider the proposals,” said Anil Swaroop, Coal secretary and additional secretary, Cabinet secretariat.

The coal secretary today jointly took stock of the status of different clearances for 15 coal mine projects of Coal India Ltd’s (CIL) subsidiary Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL).

“It has been envisaged to ramp up coal output of CIL to one billion tonne from 500 million tonne (mnt) presently and that of MCL from 110 mnt to 200 mnt by 2019. At today’s meeting, timelines were set to resolve issues pertaining to forest and other clearances for coal mines of MCL. The next such review would be done after two months,” he said.

Swaroop touched upon three key railway projects being executed in the states of Odisha, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh to boost coal transport. Among the three rail projects, the one in Odisha (Jharsuguda-Barpali link) has made the fastest progress, the Coal secretary noted. These railway projects are meant to carry coal from the mines to the main trunk line from where it can be desptached to the end use industries.

The MCL projects that were vetted include Kaniha opencast mine, Ananta opencast expansion, Lingaraj opencast project, Natraj underground mine, Gopal Prasad opencast mine, Talabira opencast mine, Kulda opencast mine, Hingula opencast project phase-III, Bhubaneswari opencast mine, Balaram opencast extension, Bharatpur opencast expansion Phase-II & III, Sairamam and Lajkura opencast projects.

The issues relating to forest diversion, construction of rehabilitation colony, building infrastructure in rehabilitation area, payment of compensation, tree felling, shifting of electricity lines, fresh land acquisition and shifting of people to transit camps came up for discussions.

J P Singh, director (technical), MCL said, “We have 22 working mines presently including 16 opencast and six underground mines. There are environment and forest clearance issues in respect of 7-8 mines and at the meeting, we have urged the Coal secretary to speed up the clearances. MCL has also demanded more rakes. We are transporting 60-62 coal laden rakes per day and have sought this to be raised to 70-75 rakes. The Government has assured us all possible help.” Singh said, MCL hopes to reach coal production of 127 mnt by the end of this fiscal, 17 per cent higher than 2013-14.

MCL is currently transporting 350,000 coal per day of which 250,000 tonne is carried by rail, 40-45,000 tonne by road and the balance through Merry Go Round (MGR) System. Coal supplies via road has come down from 70,000 tonne to 40-45,000 tonne per day as e-auction of the dry fuel has been suspended.

Apart from MCL projects, issues related to exploration of 13 coal blocks in Odisha by CIL subsidiary Central Mine Planning & Design Institute (CMPDI) were also discussed.