The Union Ministries of Coal and Railways have signed an MoU with the Jharkhand Government to form a three-way joint venture for coal evacuation logistics from the North Karanpura coalfield area in the State.
Interest break-upAccording to an official communication, the joint venture will have an authorised share capital of ₹1,000 crore. The Ministry of Coal will have a 64-per cent stake in the venture. The Railways and the State government will have 26 and 10 per cent stake, respectively.
The venture will create rail infrastructure — the proposed Tori-Shivpur-Kathotia rail line — for evacuation of coal from certain deposits in Central Coalfields Ltd’s North Karanapura area.
The proposed rail project is to evacuate 200 million tonnes (mt) of thermal coal a year to add 40,000 MW of power for the northern and western grid. The 93.5-km rail line, covering 1,053 hectares, will also transport other goods.
The proposed joint venture will now start the process of land acquisition and obtaining environmental and forest clearances.
Meanwhile, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal and Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das have inaugurated the Magadh project of CCL at the North Karanpura coalfields. The 20 mt-a-year Magadh project, which was commissioned on Sunday, will reach full extraction capacity by 2019-20. The aim is to enhance capacity to 51-mt-a-year by 2022-23. The project has reserves of 351 mt covering an acquired area of 1,526 hectares.
Coal India will require 34,000 hectares in Jharkhand to develop new coal projects. The State aims to facilitate acquisition of land in the next couple of years. These projects are estimated to generate 17,000 jobs. For railway sidings for Magadh project, RITES has prepared a feasibility report. Some 2,500 families will need to be rehabilitatedfor the project.