Coal India today said it along with the Odisha government and the Railways will set up two special purpose vehicles (SPV) for the evacuation of dry fuel.
These SPVs would be mainly for constructing additional lines, sidings for evacuating coal from the CIL mines in Odisha, the state-run miner said in a filing to the BSE.
“A meeting was held...between Chief Secretary, Odisha and Secretary (Coal) Anil Swarup where senior officials of Railways/State government and MCL (Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd), a Coal India subsidiary were present,” the filing said.
“A preliminary agreement was reached to form two SPVs, one in Talcher and other in IB Valley coalfields for evacuation of coal,” it said.
Coal India would be the majority shareholder with 64 per cent stake in each of the SPV. The Railways would have 26 per cent stake each and the remaining 10 per cent shareholding would be with the Odisha government.
Coal India Chairman Suthirtha Bhattacharya had earlier said a lot of deliberations have been carried out with the government and internally on various models to enhance the rail connectivity for coal movement.
Total 50 odd rail projects had been identified to connect with mines.
“We are looking at various models. We pay and give the responsibility of building the infrastructure to the Railways and, in return, we get freight discounts.
“The second model could be that we form a SPV which can collect freight from all the users. In these SPVs we can also involve the state governments,” he had said.
Mahanadi Coalfields and Central Coalfields have high pithead stocks where productions are more than evacuations.