The Prime Minister’s Office has directed the Railways to execute the three railway tracks proposed by Coal India to evacuate coal within three years of the necessary clearances being obtained.

Coal India Chairman and Managing Director S. Narsing Rao told Business Line that the miner’s 12th Plan targets have been set considering these lines will be functional. The public sector miner proposes to extract 615 million tonnes of coal by the terminal year of the 12th Plan, up from 436 million tonnes this year.

Production targets

“These railway tracks will facilitate the evacuation of around 100 million tonnes every year, starting 2015. Without these tracks, the 2017 production target cannot be met,” Rao said. The directive comes after recent deliberations among Pulok Chatterjee, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Vinay Mittal, Chairman, Railway Board; T. Chatterjee, Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF); S.K. Srivastava, Coal Secretary, and S. Narsing Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, Coal India.

“It has been decided that the Railways will complete the execution of all the projects within three years from the date when the necessary clearances are secured,” a senior Government official privy to the development told Business Line . The three lines are Tori-Shivpur-Kathotia in North Karanpura (92 km); Bhupdeopur-Korba and Gevra Road to Pendra Road in Chattisgarh (180 km) and Barpali-Jharsuguda-Gopalpur-Manoharpur in IB Valley in Odisha (53 km).

These lines are critical in facilitating the timely evacuation of 300 million tonnes of coal every year once they are operational.

Clearances

For the Tori-Shivpur line, the MoEF will issue the Stage-II clearance within four weeks, starting November 10.

Further, for the Shivpur-Hazaribagh stretch, the MoEF will give Stage I and II clearances by May 2012 if the Jharkhand Government sends in the proposal by December 31. For the Barpali-Jharsuguda-Gopalpur track, 28 per cent of the work has been completed. The Coal Ministry will be hoping for further clearances and land from the Odisha Government.

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