The Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao described Singareni Collieries Company Ltd as pride of Telangana for its achievements and profound impact it has had on the State.
The Collieries registered a strong growth of 15 per cent a year as against 3 per cent earlier.
Singareni currently operates 46 mines, 30 of them underground and 16 open cast mines with about 56,866 workers. The company is expanding to other states and started operations in the block allocated by the Centre at Naini mines in Odisha.
Having completed the 1,200 MW thermal power project at Jaipur in Adilabad district of the State, Singareni is seeking to establish another 800 MW plant.
Coal reserves While Telangana has about 10,528 million tonnes of coal deposits in the region, about 1,249 MT is excavated by Singareni. There are adequate coal deposits for excavation up to the next century, he said.
William King of the Geological Survey of India was the first to discover coal reserves in the Illendu areas in 1871. In 1886, Deccan Company from England took the mining rights. In 1889, coal mining started at Singareni in Khammam district.
On December 23, 1920, under the then Nizam State, Singareni Collieries Company Ltd was started. In 1945, the Nizam State took a major stake in the Company and became Managing Agent to run the affairs of the company. Since 1960, the Centre and the State government are running the company under the ratio 49:51.
During 2015-16, Singareni produced 600 lakh tonnes of coal registering a growth of 15 per cent growth as against 3 per cent during 2009-2014.
Earnings While Singareni earned about ₹400 crore on an average per year, during 2015-16 it notched up ₹1,066 crore, enabling the company to share 23 per cent of the profit with workers who were handed over ₹1 lakh to ₹1.25 lakh as bonus.
Recently, the Singareni management approved a process to provide dependants jobs.