Villagers strike cuts MCL coal supply by half

Transportation of coal from key mines of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) has been affected for last three days due to road blockages by local villagers, who have been demanding jobs, better compensation in exchange for land and other facilitates from the miner. The road blockages squeezed daily supplies by around 50 per cent, the company said.

"As against daily dispatch target of 1,13,666 tonnes, the company could dispatch only 61,793 tonnes on April 8 and 55,866 tonnes on April 9. There has been zero coal dispatch from the Ananta open cast mine since April 8," it said in a release.

The road blockage has happened near Jagannath area of MCL, which comprises three mining projects - Bhubaneswari, Ananta and Jagannath colliery. These mines together contribute 35 per cent to the total coal production of the Coal India subsidiary company, which in last fiscal produced 121 million tonnes coal.

The company is concerned that the halt in transportation could affect power generation of thermal power plants that depend upon the miner for the dry fuel.

"Power consumers, including NTPC Kaniha, TTPS Talcher, Tamilnadu State Electricity Board, APGEMCO, Talwandisaboo, Sesa Sterlite-Jharsuguda etc will be affected due to this disruption in coal transportation," it said.

Coal-fired power plants, which are situated near to coal mines, usually keep an inventory of coal for at least two weeks in advance. However, if the strike continues for long these companies might have problem in running their plants at full capacity.