Team News Riveting
Raipur, February 16
Recognizing the efforts of the South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) in the environment and sustainable development, the entity of the Coal India Limited (CIL) was honoured with the prestigious Governance Now 9th PSU Award in New Delhi on Thursday.
Governance Now announced the 9th edition of its prestigious PSU Awards. The Awards honour the efforts of Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) that have been key to the country’s growth. Over the period of eight years, the awards ceremony has seen the presence of esteemed guests to recognize the efforts of PSUs and felicitate them.
SECL was awarded the Environment and Sustainable Development (Environment and Sustainability) award in the Miniratna category. The award was given by former Chief Justice of India Justice Deepak Mishra at a function held at Aerocity, New Delhi on Thursday. In the same function, CMD SECL Dr. Prem Sagar Mishra was also given the CMD Leadership Award for his remarkable contribution.
The company has made many innovative efforts in the direction of environmental protection and promotion. The company is making continuous efforts towards reducing the environmental impact of coal mining. In this direction, the company has adopted new green technology and machines like surface miner, continuous miner, high wall mining etc. The company is also trying to plant trees on a large scale through Chhattisgarh State Forest Development Corporation and Madhya Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation, Bhopal.
Under the Chhattisgarh government’s Harihar Chhattisgarh scheme, SECL has enriched the plantation of trees along the roads of the state, as well as has given financial assistance from the CSR head in the operating states for the beautification and deepening of the ponds. SECL has planted 2.71 crore saplings since its inception till date. The plantation has been done on about 10,700 hectares of land, through which a carbon sink of about 5.36 lakh tonnes of carbon dioxide has been prepared. The water released from the mines is being used for irrigation and after water treatment, it is being used as drinking water.
The company said in a statement that under the leadership of Dr. Mishra, SECL is moving towards effective results in this financial year. The company has registered an increase of 20 million tonnes in coal production and over 55 million cubic meters in OBR as compared to the same period last year. The company has provided 773 jobs in cases of land acquisition in the calendar year 2022, which is the highest number of jobs sanctioned in lieu of land acquisition in any one year since the inception of SECL.
The delegation of SECL that attended the event included B K Jena, General Manager (Environment) and Lavesh Chowdhary, Deputy Manager (CSR).
