By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/ BHUBANESWAR: Indian government has increased the tenure of coking coal supply to upto 30 years under the coal linkage granted in auction for non-regulated sector like steel. Ministry said “The government has now approved revised tenure for the coking coal linkage in the non-regulated sector linkage auction. It has been approved that the coking coal linkage in the non-regulated sector linkage auction may be granted for a tenure upto 30 years. Laying down the guidelines for auction of coal linkages of non-regulated sector, the policy provided that the tenure of new Fuel Supply Agreements may be as decided by the Ministry of Coal subject to a maximum of 15 years”, the ministry said.
Thus, the policy for auction of linkages of non-regulated sector stands modified, the ministry said asking CIL to take further action accordingly. The country on the one hand has abundance of domestic coal, while on the other hand there is a slump in demand of the dry fuel. To boost coal demand, the government has announced a slew of measures like increased supply for linkage consumers.
The development comes at a time when Coal India Ltd, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic fuel output, is connecting with non-regulated sector for domestic coal which is available in abundance in the country.State-owned Coal India Ltd has reported 11.2% decline in production at 41.43 million tonne in May. CIL coal off take was up at 39.95 million tonne in May compared to 39.06 million tonne in April.
Overburden removal growth for May 2020 was 21% at 124.59 Million Cubic Meters OB removal, compared to year-ago month. This bodes well for the state-owned coal mining behemoth as OBR is an important performance parameter that removes top soil and lays bare the coal seams for future mining in opencast mines, it said.
Coal India Limited’s Odisha based subsidiary Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd witnessed a 42.6 % expansion in overburden removing. CIL said that MCL has cleared 27.51 million cubic metres of best soil and extraneous topic in comparison to 19.29 million cubic metres in past 12 months, a quantity build up of 8.22 million cubic metres leading to 42.6 % expansion. Overburden removing is a very powerful efficiency parameter because it exposes the coal seam for long term mining and MCL would have the ability to pick out up the manufacturing pace as soon as the call for coal alternatives up.
MCL produced 140.36 million tonne of coal of which 139.52 million tonne used to be via opencast approach. It has a goal to supply 173 million tonne all the way through the present fiscal and going ahead is concentrated to give a contribution considerably to the song of 263 million tonne by way of 2023-24 in CIL’s quest of 1 billion tonnes of coal manufacturing by way of then.
