Coal India Limited (CIL), the Maharatna coal mining monolith had unveiled its road map, of strategies to be adopted, to attain the one Billion Tonne (BT) coal production mark by 2019-20. With the projected coal demand of the country hovering around 1,200 Million Tonnes (MTs) by 2019-20, at an envisaged growth rate of 7 per cent, CIL is expected to chip in one BT, of which 908 MTs is the expected contribution from the indentified projects. The process of identification of projects to share the balance quantity, to top up the one BT mark, is also underway. The tow CIL subsidiaries Sambalpur based Mahanadi Coalfields Limited and the Bilaspur based South Eastern Coalfields Limited are expected to play a pivotal role in CIL’s quest of attaining the one BT production with 250 MTs and 240 MTs respectively.
The key issues that the coal miner is basically relying on are timely completion of three critical railway lines and timely land acquisition and green clearance.
The important actions initiated are creation of Coal Project Monitoring Group (CPMG) portal for regular monitoring of project related issues with different ministries and State Authorities. To overcome the hurdle of coal evacuation, CIL had decided to purchase 2000 railway wagons from its own kitty for which a specific fund had been earmarked. The coordination with Railways for implementation has already been initiated. In a move to synergize its efforts SECL already has 2 Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) with State governments to delvelop rail network including last mile connectivity, involving Railways. Another SPV between Ministry of Coal Ministry of Railways and Government Jharkhand was signed on May 4, 2015 for the critical Tori-Shivpur-Kathotia line.
The strategies for future include Technology up gradation in Opencast Mines with high capacity equipment, operator independence Truck Dispath System, Vehicle tracking system using GPS/GPRS, Coal Handling Plants (CHPs) and SILOS for Faster Loading and monitoring using Laser Scanners. As far as productivity improvement in underground mines is concerned the steps taken by CIL will include introduction of Continuous Miner Technology in large scale, Long-wall Technology at selected places, Man Riding system in major mines and Use of Tele monitoring Techniques.
CIL is also introducing a number of systems improvements that would help the company in realizing its challenging target. Use of ICT, remote sensing geophysical technologies and proper monitoring and evaluation methodologies will be the key features. In addition, the corporate grant has come up with a unique scheme for online vigilance clearance system which was inaugurated by Sh. Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy in Kolkata today.
Besides, the CIL employees donated a sum of Rs.5 crore to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund and the cheque was handed over to Shri Goyal on this ocassion.
RM/RS