Seven Open Cast Mines to be Offered to Mine Developer for Increased Coal Production The Government has proposed to offer seven Open Cast Mines of about 25 million tonnes capacity to Mine Developer-cum-Operators (MDOs) by this year end to increase coal production. Bedsides this, 14 blocks for power and 3 for mining have been put on offer recently under Government Dispensation Route and allocation of these blocks will be completed shortly. This was stated by Union Coal Minister Shri Sriprakash Jaiswal while addressing the inaugural session of the ‘National Coal Conference’ organized by the ASSOCHAM here in New Delhi today. He said that some more blocks will be offered to private sector shortly to ensure increased availability of coal in the country. Full text of Coal Minister’s Speech is as follows: “We are facing tough challenges in meeting rapidly increasing energy requirements. Coal being the main stay of our energy most of the additional generation capacities are being planned and implemented on the basis of this fuel. It has been our constant endeavor to step up the Domestic Coal Production in order to meet the growing needs of our economy. During the year 2012-13, the overall production of coal has increased by 17.5 Million Tonnes. Of this increase, close to 16.4 Million Tonnes came from Coal India Ltd. (CIL). CIL has also registered a growth of 1.3% in production, 1.8% in off-take and 7.4% in coal supply to the power sector during April-May 2013. This increase has been due to the concerted efforts by the coal PSUs, close monitoring and better inter-ministerial co-ordination by officials of Ministry of Coal. The supplies of coal in the recent times are falling short of projected demand due to domestic production capacity constraints on various accounts and Government is taking all the necessary measures in addressing these issues. Environmental issues, land acquisition and R&R issues, evacuation constraints and law and order problems in some coalfields are the critical issues in enhancing coal production. Even captive coal blocks have failed to meet the production targets for the above reasons. To achieve the projected growth in production a number of new projects are planned to be taken up in PSU coal companies and a number of coal blocks have been allocated to various private and government companies and few more are in the pipe line for allocation. Besides, supplies would also need to be made good through imports. *** Source PTI NCJ/RV (Release ID :96685)
Posted on: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:31:56 +0000
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