Team News Riveting
Raipur, May 17
Gevra open cast coal mine of the South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) had received green panel nod to augment the production to 49 million tonne per annum (MTPA).
The present capacity of the Gevra coal mine, which is described as the largest open cast coal mine in India and Asia besides world’s second largest, is 45 MTPA. It is one of the 89 mines of Bilaspur-headquartered SECL spread over Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
SECL, an arm of the state-run Coal India Limited (CIL), had submitted an online proposal for the grant of environment clearance (EC) on February 26, 2021. The proposal was considered by the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) in the ministry for thermal and coal mining sector in its 10th meeting held on March 22, 2021.
“The committee recommended the proposal for grant of Environment Clearance to the expansion of Gevra open cast coal mine from 45 MTPA to 49 MTPA in the mine lease area of 4148.486 hectare,” the notification dated May 10, 2021 said. Employment to 4391 persons would be provided from the expansion plan.
The mining expansion project for 49 MTPA, which is estimated to be Rs 11,816.40 crore, was approved by SECL Board in October 2017. The company has coal linkage with the country’s largest power producer National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and various other thermal power producers.
The total mineable reserve is 400.246 million tonne (MT) and 100 per cent is available for extraction. The life of the mine will be nine years.
The much-awaited expansion plan of Gevra project would boost the coal production of CIL and also SECL, which accounted for the highest share in the state-run miner’s total coal output. In the last fiscal, SECL produced 150.6 MT of coal and ranked top among the CIL entities.
