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Coal, Railway ministry and Jharkhand to sign MoU for coal evacuation

The Jharkhand state government will sign a pact on Monday with the coal and railway ministries to build a rail link for easy evacuation of coal from the mineral-rich state.
As part of the pact, a special purpose vehicle will be formed with Coal India Ltd holding 64% stake, Indian Railway Construction Co. Ltd (Ircon) with 26% stake and the state government with 10%.
“Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed between ministry of coal, railway ministry and Jharkhand government on 4 May to implement coal evacuation projects,” coal secretary Anil Swarup had tweeted on Saturday. Jharkhand is the third state after Chatttisgarh and Odisha to sign the pact.
While signing a similar pact with the Odisha government last month, energy minister Piyush Goyal called it a “win-win” arrangement for all stakeholders. “Coal India will increase production and make more money of what it produces while keeping its cost low,” he had said in the press meet.
Coal India’s production saw a growth of 10.7% in April 2015 against the same period last year. The state-run miner produced 41.52 million tonnes in April, exceeding its target for the month. The government plans to increase Coal India’s production to 1 billion tonne by 2020, effectively doing away with the need to import the fuel.
In an interview to Mint, coal secretary, Anil Swarup, had talked about Coal India’s expenditure plans. “Coal India doesn’t have shortage of funds. They are sitting on funds. They have a capex plan of Rs 30,000-35,000 crore over a period of next five years. They have identified 121 railway projects for evacuation. And these will be executed by the SPVs we are setting up in each state.”
In total, the government expects to move 300 million tonnes of coal through these three lines. The royalty from all the coal transported will be passed on to the state governments. This will be in addition to the money the states have received in the two rounds of coal auctions conducted so far. The next round of auctions is expected to begin later this month.

source: http://www.livemint.com