The Hindu Business Line : SECL not for allocating new virgin blocks to end users

SOUTH Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL), a profit-making subsidiary of Coal India (CIL), is understood to have expressed reservations about further allocating any new virgin coal blocks under the company's command area, for captive mining by the end-users because the company itself requires more such blocks for augmenting its own future production. This has been communicated to the department concerned in the Union Ministry of Coal.

A total of eight virgin coal blocks in the SECL command area, with substantial geological reserves have already been allotted to private corporate outfits for captive mining, leaving limited scope for further allotment to private parties. This apart, the mine preparation work at the allotted mines is not progressing satisfactorily.

SECL has decided to develop new blocks to meet the growing demand for its coal. Many up-coming sponge iron units in Chhattisgarh have approached SECL for coal linkage. As most of the sponge iron projects are being set up at Raigarh, the company has decided to develop new mines at the Raigarh coalfield. It is estimated that these sponge iron units may require at least 15 million tonnes (m.t.) of coal per annum.

Incidentally, Raigarh coalfield at present produces only about 0.5mt. The company proposes to raise this field's capacity to 15 mt in the next few years.

The SECL's Chairman & Managing Director, Mr M.K. Thapar, told Business Line that the company had sufficient fund to take up new project in the Tenth and Eleventh Plans. It had set a production target of about 85 mt for the year 2006-07, against production of about 74 .5 mt in 2003-04. The annual production was to be raised to 114 mt by the terminal year of the Eleventh Plan.

Mr Thapar said that the company was expecting an increased demand from power and steel sectors. It was at present dispatching 81 per cent of its total production to power stations, 9 per cent to cement plants, 4 per cent to steel plants and 5 to fertilizer units.

Of the total dispatches, 35 per cent of coal is consumed by industries in Chhattisgarh, 21 per cent by consumers in Gujarat, 13 per cent goes to Punjab, 12.5 per cent to Rajasthan, 10 per cent to Maharashtra, 3 per cent to Punjab and 1 per cent to Haryana. Additional coal demand is expected to come mainly from the existing consuming states, he indicated.