The Union Ministry of Coal has allocated two coal blocks to iron ore mining company NMDC, the Rohne and Tokisud North under Section 5(1) of Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 for commercial mining at Hazaribagh District of Jharkhand.
The Rohne coal block has extractable reserves of 191 million tonnes (mt) and planned production capacity of 8 mt per annum. The Tokisud North coal block has extractable reserves of about 52 mt of thermal coal and planned production capacity of 2.32 mt per annum. Rohne coal block has coking coal which may require washing before feeding into steel plant. NMDC is exploring the possibility for setting up of coal washeries.
NMDC is set to execute allotment agreement of Tokisud North coal block on December 24. The Rohne coal block allotment agreement would be executed as per the directives from Ministry of Coal with respective execution date.
Both the coal blocks have been allocated to the NMDC’s Coal Division. The coal division has been set up at Hyderabad exclusively for coal assets in India to provide linkage to steel and power sector.
N Baijendra Kumar, CMD, NMDC thanked the Steel and Coal Ministry for reposing faith on NMDC to diversify into coal.