Bhubaneswar: The Telangana-based Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) will commence production at a mine in Odisha’s Naini block from Wednesday.
The mine in Chhendipada, Angul, was allotted to SCCL about nine years ago.
This is the first time in its 130-year history that SCCL will mine coal outside Telangana. The state’s deputy chief minister and minister in charge of the energy and finance departments M Bhatti Vikramarka is expected to launch the mine virtually during the day, The Hindu reported.
According to officials, the peak production of the mine will be 10 million tonnes a year and deposits will last for the next 38 years. N Balaram, chairman and managing director, SCCL, has called this a historic day for the colliery. The mine was allotted to the company by the Union Ministry of Coal in May 2016, he said. It took nine years for clearances and approvals to arrive.
The national daily quoted Balaram as saying that the Naini will be the largest opencast mine under SCCL. The 17 opencast mines within the Singareni coal belt in Telangana are comparatively smaller. It has been estimated that Naini has 340.78 million tonnes of coal. The CMD also noted that against the average overburden removal of 12 million cubic metres per tonne of coal in the Singareni mines, Naini will only require an overburden removal of 2.5 million cubic metres.
Contracts for overburden removal, mining and transportation of the coal – by road to the nearest Jarapada railway siding – have already been awarded. The coal at Naini is of G10 quality. This means that it has a gross calorific value of 4,300 kilocalories per kg of coal. Starting of operations involved the acquisition of 2,225 acres. Of this 1,935 acres was forest land and the remaining private.
There are now plans to construct a 60 km long railway link in association with other mine allottees in the area. This will be a common facility.
