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In October, when Nagpur-based Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) starts extracting fuel from the new Penganga opencast project, it will use surface miners for the first time.
WCL’s customers will heave a sigh of relief on the fuel quality front as surface miners extract dirt-free, sized up coal. In extensive use in many Coal India Ltd (CIL) mines, its arm, WCL, had been holding out bringing in the surface-miners.
WCL has come a long way from when it ran virtually independent of the parent and allegations of corruption swirled around it. The situation became so bad that the Maharashtra State Power Generation Company (Mahagenco) took CIL to the Competition Commission in 2013.
Quality drive“The situation was pathetic. Even the crushers (used to size coal) did not work and even boulders were dispatched,” admitted Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, who took charge as Chairman and Managing Director of WCL in October 2014. Mishra has been working overtime to improve quality.
“When I took over, WCL’s production was down for the fifth year in a row. It had made operational losses for the third year. Rampant transfers had broken the morale of officers. Consumers didn’t trust us. Everyone had literally written us off,” he told BusinessLine .
Mishra attacked each of these problems. Not one senior officer has been transferred in his regime. Junior and mid-management officers have been actively involved in decision-making through a GenNext programme that is now being replicated in other CIL subsidiaries.
Sea change
There has been a sea change on the production front. The poor geographical conditions of WCL’s mines meant a high stripping ratio (the amount of soil to be moved to expose the coal seam) and thin seams.
Poor production planning and the slow pace of taking possession of acquired land slowed output to 39 million tonnes in 2013-14, well below the breakeven point of 41 mt.
But post takeover by Mishra, WCL has gone into a production overdrive, taking possession of 1,913 hectares against the annual average of 260 ha in the last decade.
WCL has also lined up 26 projects for commissioning in two years beginning January 2015 to augment capacities by 50 per cent to 60 million tonnes over five years. Already, the output has improved to 41 mt in 2014-15, and WCL hopes to better that in 2015-16 by extracting 45 mt.
“We have decided to open one project (mine) a month. Penganga was the first project to be opened — in January — that will now start producing coal,” said Mishra.
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