Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL), the subsidiary of Coal India Ltd (CIL) has opened trilogy (three) of new coal mines in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh with total capital expenditure (Capex) of Rs 849 crores. These will generate direct employment for 647 people.
- Location: The three mines are Adasa Mine, an underground to open cast mine, in Nagpur Area of Maharashtra, Sharda underground Mine in Kanhan Area and Dhankasa underground mine in Pench Area of Madhya Pradesh.
- Annual Production: These three mines will have combined annual production capacity of 2.9 million tonnes (MT). The annual coal production capacity of Adasa mine is 1.5 MT whereas Sharda and Dhankasa mines have annual coal production capacities of 0.4 MT and 1 MT respectively.
Inauguration of mines
The mines were inaugurated by Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Coal and Mines Pralhad Joshi, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray through video conferencing.
Protection of mines through WCL EYE & SAMVAAD
In order to monitor the mines, and to connect with its employees and stakeholders, WCL launched the following systems:
- WCL EYE: It is a surveillance system which will monitor operations of 15 major mines of the company accounting 70% of the company’s coal production. It will also help monitor coal stocks.
- SAMVAAD: It is a Mobile and Desktop App for employees & stakeholders, which will provide a virtual platform for suggestion/feedback/experience sharing. Quick Response Teams will respond to the queries and feedback in a 7 days mandated period.
Targets of WCL: 100 MT by FY26-27
-FY26-27: WCL has set a target to increase its coal production to 100 million tonnes (MT) by 2026-27. Importantly, it also has a sub-target of 75 MT of coal production by FY 23-24.
- It should be noted that Coal India has a target of achieving 1 billion tonnes (BT) coal production target by financial year 2023-24, which will get the support of these three newly launched mines and WCL.
-FY23-24: Notably, these newly launched three Mines are a part of WCL’s future plan to start 20 new Projects by financial year 2023-24 including 14 in Maharashtra and 6 in Madhya Pradesh with capex of Rs 12,753 crore and generation of over 14000 direct employments.
-FY20-21: It has launched “Mission 100 Days” a roadmap to achieve a target of 62 MT for the current fiscal.
-FY19-20: The Company had produced 57.64 MT of coal in the financial year 2019-20, a rise of 8% in comparison to FY18-19.
COAL India support towards COVID-19
Different subsidiaries of Coal India have given Rs 20 crore to the government of Madhya Pradesh to strengthen its fight against COVID-19 pandemic in the state. Coal India will also give Rs 20 crore soon to the government of Maharashtra for the same.
About WCL:
Headquarter- Nagpur, Maharashtra
Chairman-cum-Managing Director– Rajiv Ranjan Mishra
About CIL:
Headquarters– Kolkata, West Bengal
Chairman-cum-Managing-Director– Pramod Agrawal
