Coal news and updates

Rains, land Act uncertainty impact SCCL production

September 13: Severe rains in the mining areas, delay in getting forest clearances and uncertainty over the new land acquisition Act are taking a toll on Singareni Colliery Company Ltd's production plans, company Chairman and Managing Director Sutirtha Bhattacharyya told ICMW.

"At present, our production is nearly 18% below the target because of various issues such as delays in getting forest clearances for open cast projects and also because of slow progress in land acquisition in the aftermath of the new land acquisition policy," he said.

Besides, the delay in getting desired production from the Adriala mine has also affected the company's production plans.

"The Adriala project was expected to yield 2 million tons in the current financial year but, at present, it is not producing at full capacity. The full capacity is likely to be reached by January 2014," the CMD said.

"We are trying hard to improve production volumes, but still there are miles to go. There is problem related to water logging in mines and there are other factors affecting production," Bhattacharyya said.

According to him, there is still huge uncertainty regarding the new land acquisition Act as people do not know the nitty-gritty of the policy. This is likely to slow down the process of acquisition, at least temporarily, he added.

Regarding forest clearances, the CMD said, unlike Coal India Ltd, which might have to tackle 70 projects out of the 100 planned for forest clearances, SCCL has to tackle 100 projects out of 120 planned to keep pace with production.  "This is a big pressure," he added.