Govt puts 42 Coal India projects on monitoring list

New Delhi: Stressing upon the need for timely execution of projects, the government has put Coal India’s (CIL) 42 mining projects on its monitoring list, amid ambitious plans for 1 billion tonnes output by 2019.

Coal Secretary S K Srivastava, while reviewing the status of the ongoing CIL projects had recently told the CMDs of the company’s subsidiaries about the expectation from coal sectorand importance of timely implementation of coal mining projects, said a source.

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“A total of 49 projects each of three million tonnes per annum and above capacity and capital cost of Rs 500 crore and above, including 42 from CIL were included in the monitoring list,” the source said.

During the meeting, the coal secretary assured the Chairman and Managing Directors of the CIL subsidiaries that the Coal Ministry would help them in the issue of clearances and other assistance from the ministries concerned, including environment, the source said.

“CMDs were advised to ensure that nothing was left pending at the company level,” he added.

Some of the projects under the monitoring list include Kulda Open Cast Project (OCP)in Odisha, Kaniha (OCP) in Odisha, Amarapali OCP in Jharkhand and Amlohri Expansion OCP in Madhya Pradesh.

Coal India has 148 on-going projects which are under different stages of implementation. Of these projects, 95 mines have both forestry and environmental clearances.

Environmental clearances are awaited for four projects, forestry nod are awaited for 27 projects and for the balance 22 projects, both forestry and environmental clearances are
awaited.

Coal India, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production, missed its production target for FY'14 and produced 462 million tonnes of coal.

PTI