By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR/NEW DELHI: NLC India Limited, a Navratna Public Enterprise under the Ministry of Coal, has for the first time, commenced production of Coal. The coal produced from Talabira II and III Mines in the state of Odisha, which was allotted to NLCIL in 2016 with a capacity of 20 Million Tonne per annum will be used to meet its requirement of its existing and future coal fired power plants.
Commenting on the development, Rakesh Kumar, Chairman Cum Managing Director, NLC India Limited said, “By achieving success on this project during the difficult time of COVID-19 lockdown situation, our team has not only helped the company on its growth path but also contributed for energy security of the country especially when avoiding import of coal is the top most priority.”
This coal block has been developed through MDO model which is innovatively developed and successfully implemented by NLC team and has earned appreciation across the industry. This Mine has a low stripping ratio of 1.09 and coal is of G 12 grade which will enable the company to generate competitive power in the time to come. The coal production was commenced on 26th April 2020.
In the recent past, the energy major, NLC India Limited has successfully commissioned its one of the two Units of lignite based power plant (1000 MW – 2 Units of 500 MW each), the first of its kind in the country. During 2019-2020, NLCIL has also successfully achieved Renewable Energy Generation capacity of 1404 MW comprising 1353 MW of Solar and 51 MW of Wind Power.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Coal (MoC) launched a Project Monitoring Unit (PMU) for facilitation of early operationalisation of coal mines allocated by the Central Government.
This is an important step forward to promote Ease of Doing Business as it will hand-hold and support Coal mines allocatees in obtaining timely approval/permissions to operationalise the mines. Anil Kumar Jain, Secretary, MoC addressed the allocatees on the occasion through a video conference and asked them to freely utilise the services of the Consultant in sorting out their issues so that the coal production may begin at the earliest.
PMU has been launched for helping the allocatees of coal mines in obtaining various clearances required from the Central/State government authorities for operationalization of coal mines. This will lead to ramping up of coal production in the country.
This move is also expected to go a long way in attracting bidders for the ensuing auction round of commercial blocks. This measure will improve production and business environment in the coal industry.M/s KPMG, has been appointed as the Consultant, in Project Monitoring Unit (PMU) through a transparent bidding process.
