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Our Bureau

Hyderabad, June 28 Singareni Collieries Company Ltd, (SCCL) today projected a production target of 15.36 mt from underground mines during the year 2009-2010.

The company in a statement said that it has proposed to take up 20 projects in the next 10 years. This includes four new opencast mines, six opencast expansion projects (that is extension of existing projects), one underground mine and nine underground extension projects. The colliery is increasing production to meet the growing demand for power generation, cement and sponge-iron sectors.

During 2008-2009, SCCL supplied 29.98 mt to power generation, 11.74 mt to cement, sponge-iron, brick kiln and other industries.

SCCL has increased its underground production from 5.31 mt since nationalisation of coal industry in 1973 to 12.09 mtin 2008-2009. The company has opened about 77 underground and 20 opencast mines in the last 50 years.

Of this, 47 underground mines and 6 opencast mines were closed due to exhaustion of coal reserves and also to meet safety norms. The SCCL management maintained that it has limited opencast mine reserves which may exhaust within the next 10 to 15 years.

Agitated farmers, on Sunday, protested at a public hearing hosted to discuss land acquisition for opencast Project II at Manthani in Karimnagar district.

Thecompany is seeking to acquire about 2000 acres of land that covers five villages for its opencast project expansion plan. The farmers and their families were extremely agitated protesting against the acquisition of the land at the outset. However, some others are open to parting with the land provided they were offered the right value and adequate compensation.

Farmers are demanding Rs 10 lakh per acre of land taken away from them, suitable relocation, construction of community houses and infrastructure and employment for a member of the family in the mines.

The Akkapalli village is located about 60 km from Karimnagar where the public hearing turned violent in the morning, after officials convened a meeting to hear them out. The issue is being discussed since the last six months.

While some activists are protesting on the ground that it would harm the environment, some political parties have joined the cause in support of the locals.

More Stories on : Outlook | Coal | PSU | Andhra Pradesh

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