Date | Sept 05, 2017:

Coal India Ltd (CIL) recorded offtake of 11.48 million tonnes (MT) from South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) against target of 10.92 MT during August 2017— a jump of 105 per cent.

SECL achieved total production of 28.178 million tonnes (MT) of coal from its open cast (OC) mines during April-June period of the current financial year, officials informed.

SECL also excavated 125.45 million tonnes (MT) of coal from its mines during the last five year period (2012-13 to 2016-17) from its Open Cast mines, the latest SECL data has revealed.

Notably, CIL had recorded offtake of coal from its largest subsidiary SECL at 124.34 million tonnes between April 2015 to February 2016.

This was against the target of 123.89 million tonnes (MT) which was a growth of 11.1 per cent.

Notably, SECL is targetting total coal production of 250 million tonnes (MT) from its underground and open cast mines by 2019-20, officials stated.

The company recorded coal production (provisional) of 12.10 million tonnes (MT) against target of 11.70 MT as on February 2016, Coal India Ltd had informed the Bombay Stock Exchange in its filing earlier.

Notably, the Coal India Ltd is targetting production of 1 billion tonnes of coal by 2020. Wagon availability will be a key factor for achieving this target , officials stated.

The Central Government has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding each with the states of Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh for critical coal connectivity projects to improve transportation of coal, officials informed.

The company has recorded coal production of 83.77 millions tonnes (MT) against a target of 90.37 (MT) between April to November 2016, they informed.

It has also commenced the process for setting up the 5.0 MTPA Baroud Coal Washery in Raigarh district of the State, officials informed.

The Washery will be set up on Build-Operate-Maintain (BOM) basis.

It may be recalled that SECL will provide the capital funding for setting up of the Washery and also other infrastructural facilities like land, water, power etc.

Notably, the Central Government decided to transport coal above G10 level only after being washed from October 1, 2017. The decision is taken to tackle the quality issue of the coal produced.

In order to meet the rising demand, Coal India Ltd has been setting up 15 new washeries with a total capacity of 112.6 million tonnes per annum. Out of these washeries, six are Coking Coal washeries with total capacity of 18.6 million tonnes per annum and nine Non-Coking washeries of 94.0 million tonnes per annum. Apart from these, 3 washeries of 11.6 million tonnes per annum are under construction, officials stated.

Notably, CIL has decided to set up washeries in its various subsidiaries to reduce the quantity of ash and other not useful component from coal so as to make it competitive in comparison to imported coal across the country.

Mineral-rich Chhattisgarh with sizeable number of coal mining blocks could be a natural gainer in the recommendations made by a Study Group constituted by the Central Government to revise the coal royalty rates.

The Study Group had submitted its report to the Union Ministry of Coal recently for consideration, official sources informed.

It may be recalled that the Chhattisgarh Government had sent a proposal to the Union Coal Ministry last year for increasing the rate of coal royalty from existing 14 % to 30 %, officials informed.

Chhattisgarh is among seven states where mineral blocks have been auctioned resulting in total additional revenue of Rs 47,551 crores to the Central government as on November 2016.

The other states where the mineral blocks were auctioned were Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha and Jharkhand, the Central Government has informed.

Notably, Chhattisgarh has collected Rs 712.04 crores under ‘District Mineral Foundations’ (DMFs) from all the 27 districts of the State where the Foundation had been established, the Central government has informed.

Notably, the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 (MMDR Act, 1957) was amended through the MMDR Amendment Act, 2015. One of the amendment provisions relates to introduction of section 9B which provides for the establishment of District Mineral Foundation (DMF) in any district affected by mining related operations.

The objective of the DMF is to work for the interest and benefit of persons, and areas affected by mining related operations.

The Union Ministry of Mines has also commenced the process for pilot launch of Mining Surveillance System (MSS) for keeping vigil on illegal mining of even minor minerals in Chhattisgarh besides two other states, officials informed.

The process is underway to launch a system for minor minerals in coalition with the State Governments. The states of Haryana, Telangana and Chhattisgarh have been selected for a pilot launch, officials informed.

Notably, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines, Piyush Goyal had launched theMining Surveillance System (MSS) in New Delhi recently.

The Union Ministry of Mines, through Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), has developed the MSS, in coordination with Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG), Gandhinagar and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), to use space technology for curbing illegal mining activity in the country.

Been developed under the Digital India Programme, MSS is one of the first such surveillance systems developed in the world using space technology. The current system of monitoring of illegal mining activityis based on local complaints and unconfirmed information. There is no robust mechanism to monitor the action taken on such complaints.

Notably, the Automatic software leveraging image processing technology generates automatic triggers of unauthorized activities. These triggers will be studied at a Remote Sensing Control Centre of IBM and then transmitted to the district level mining officials for field verification.

A check for illegality in operation is conducted and reported back using a mobile app.

A user-friendly mobile app has been created which can be used by these officials to submit compliance reports of their inspections. The mobile app also aims to establish a participative monitoring system where the citizens also can use this app and report unusual mining activity.

The advantages of remote sensing technology based monitoring system are that it is Transparent (Public will be provided an access to the system); Bias-free and Independent (The system has no human interference); Deterrence Effect (‘Eyes watching from the sky’); Quicker Response and Action (The mining areas will be monitored regularly. Sensitive areas will be monitored more frequently); Effective Follow-up (action taken on triggers will be followed-up at various levels like DMG, State Mining Secretary, State Office and Headquarters Office of IBM and Ministry of Mines, GoI).

There are in total 3843 mining leases of major minerals in India. Out of which, there are 1710 working mines and 2133 non-working mines.

(Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/)