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Public sector miner Coal India Ltd has lined up an investment of Rs 7,500 crore to develop railway tracks and related infrastructure to evacuate coal from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha.
These would help the company to evacuate around 100 million tonnes (mt) of additional coal from each of the States.
“The investments would be made in the next three-four years. Coal India would fund the projects and Railways would be laying the tracks and own them. This gives us the opportunity to transport coal. The additional money that we are investing would be recovered through a mechanism,” Coal India Chairman and Managing Director, Mr S. Narsing Rao, told newspersons at the company’s head office.
Non-availability of transportation though Railways has been preventing the company from extracting coal from mines, the demand for which has surged from power plants.
The miner is not able to transport more than 2-3 mt of coal through roads. Therefore, the remaining reserves remain unexplored. Most of the mines in these States have the capacity to produce around 10 mt.
The Coal Secretary, Mr S.K. Srivastava, and the Railway Board Chairman, Mr Vinay Mittal, met the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, Mr Raman Singh, early this month to discuss a roadmap for laying rail tracks connecting different mines in the State.
“The Railways are taking this seriously. And if it takes off, we can open more mines, and more coal can be extracted and evacuated. Today, we are stuck with unrealised potential in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand,” Mr Rao said.
Nearly 58 mt coal is stuck as Coal India is not being able to evacuate. “We have liquidated 12 mt in past three months,” he added.
“Today, there is gap of 45 mt between approved production and output. This is because I cannot evacuate the coal. In Mahanadi coalfields, 42-43 mt are unrealised,” Mr Rao said.
Coal India had cash reserves of Rs 58,202.78 crore as on March 30. It has lined up a capital expenditure of close to Rs 30,000 crore during the 12th Plan.
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