Vijayawada | Jun 02, 2016: In a major initiative to make the state self-reliant in energy sector, the state government has put the process of coal exploration from mines in Krishna and West Godavari districts on fast-track.
The government has roped in public sector majors - Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL) and National Mining Exploration Trust (NMET) to realise the coal exploration plans within the next 12 months. The state government entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with MECL and NMET here on Wednesday.
With scientific studies indicating that there are vast coal reserves along the tracts of K-G Basin in Chintalapudi (West Godavari) and Nuzvid (Krishna), the state government immediately prepared plans to extract black gold. Preliminary studies showed that K-G basin could be having reserves of 3,000 million tonnes of coal.
Besides finding the exact location of the mineral reserves, the public sector firms would also extend support in exploration and marketing of the goods, said mines and geology minister Peethala Sujatha. She said they were planning to start production by 2017, for which the initial process of identifying the exact coal blocks would be completed by this December. While MECL would deploy workers and required machinery to track the mineral reserves, NMET would take up the job of exploration.
"We will pay about 2 per cent royalty on the revenues from major minerals to NMET, which would in turn pay MECL for taking up survey and research work," said Sujatha.
Both the firms would continue search operations for harnessing more minerals in the state, she said. She added that these firms would extend their service in finding gold reserves too.
Sujatha said the firms would also help the state government auction limekiln.
However, the minister said the government would auction the mineral blocks after exactly detecting them. The MoU was signed in the presence of Sujatha and chief secretary SP Tucker. Mines and geology secretary Giraja Sankar, Koshi Khan (NMET) and Yogesh Sharma (MECL) exchanged the MoU documents.
(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)