Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) has decided to commence coal production in Naini (Odisha) block from this September and in VK, Rompedu opencast and Goleti opencast mines from this December.
At a meeting held here on Wednesday, Chairman and Managing Director of the Company N. Sridhar instructed the authorities to make arrangements, including getting pending approvals and clearances for the VK mine at Kothagudem, Rompedu Yellandu and Goleti at Bellampally before December so that at least a million tonnes of coal could be produced from the three mines this financial year.
Officials stated that a few forest clearances were due for the three mines. The VK coal mine has annual production capacity of 4.3 million tonnes, GK opencast at Rompedu has capacity of 2 million tonnes and Goleti 3.5 million tonnes. However, the production being planned in these mines in four months of this fiscal – from December to March next – is at 0.7 million tonnes, 0.3 million tonnes and 0.5 million tonnes, respectively.
The CMD stated that all approvals and clearances for Naini mine were secured already but the exercise to enumerate the trees in the location planned for production this year and their removal was in progress. He told the authorities to complete the exercise at the earliest so that production could be taken up from September.
He made it clear that contribution of production from the new mines was necessary to achieve the target of 75 million tonnes set for the year. He asked the officials concerned to step up work for securing approvals for taking up production in Ramagundam, MVK opencast and two other opencast mines in 2024-25.
Directors of the company N. Balaram (Finance, Personnel), N.V.K. Srinivas (Operations), G. Venkateshwar Reddy (Projects, Planning), Advisors D.N. Prasad (Mining), Surendra Pandey (Forestry), Executive Director (Coal Movement) J. Allwyn, General Managers M. Suresh, K. Suryanarayana, J. Ramesh, M. Babu Rao, Ravi Prasad and Saibabu attended the meeting.
