Team News Riveting
Raipur, May 19
Coal Secretary Amrit Lal Meena held a high-level meeting with the officials of Chhattisgarh government headed by Chief Secretary Amitabh Jain to expedite pending projects and enhance coal production.
Both Meena and Jain are Indian Administrative Service (IAS) batch-mates. They represent the 1989-batch of IAS. While Meena belongs to Bihar cadre, Jain’s cadre state is Chhattisgarh.
During the meeting held on Thursday at Mantralaya Mahanadi Bhawan, the officials held discussion on various issues related to ongoing mining projects of South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), the Chhattisgarh-based entity of state-owned Coal India Limited (CIL) having major operations in the state. Besides Additional Coal Secretary Smt. Vismita Tej, SECL CMD Dr Prem Sagar Mishra and senior officials of the state government were present in the meeting.
Sources said the officials stressed for better coordination with the state government to accelerate the operations. The issues of pending clearances at the end of state government were prominently taken up in the meeting. “During the meeting, important discussions were held mainly on issues related to SECL’s operations including environmental clearances, forest clearances, land acquisition, expected cooperation from the state government in expansion of projects, rehabilitation and resettlement especially in respect of SECL’s mega projects such as Gevra and Kusmunda,” a coal ministry official said.
Meena emphasized on time bound completion of the projects with mutual coordination and cooperation with the State government.
The official said the Gevra Mega project of SECL became the country’s maiden mine to achieve 50 million tonnes of coal production in a year. It is currently being expanded and developed to achieve 70 million tonnes of production that would make it the largest coal producing mine in Asia. The meeting was crucial to speed up the expansion plans with the coordination of the state government to address the issues related to environment clearances, rehabilitations and resettlement.
The Coal Secretary also visited the SECL headquarters in Bilaspur and held a meeting with General Manager of the South East Central Railway Alok Kumar. During the meeting, officials discussed issues related to SECL’s coal dispatch, availability of railway rakes, rail projects of SECL. The progress works related to railway sidings at Gharghoda, Korichpar, Dharamjaygarh, Chaal and Baraud besides Bilaspur-Urga National Highway, Dharamjaygarh to Urga coal project were also examined during the meet.
