Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. (SCCL) has handed over a cheque of ₹62.17 crore to South Central Railway for timely completion of the Kothagudem-Sathupalli railway line taking the total share of its investment for constructing the new line to ₹618.55 crore. The line is expected to be completed by February next.
The new rail line would not only save costs for the coal company but would also be an environment-friendly measure as taking the coal produced in the Sathupalli area mines to Rudrampur coal handling plant (CHP) located 70 km away by lorries every day was causing dust and noise pollution to the habitations on the way.
According to the SCCL officials, about 30,000 tonnes of coal are being transported by road from the mines to the CHP every day and the completion of 53 km long Sathupalli-Kothagudem line would bring down the transportation costs as well as pollution.
The cheque was handed over to SCR General Manager Gajanan Mallya here on Friday by Executive Director (Coal Movement) J. Allwyn, General Manager (Marketing) K. Suryanarayana and GM (Civil) Ramesh Babu.
The SCCL officials requested SCR to complete the rail line at the earliest and help make coal transportation easy. The SCR GM assured of completing the work by February. The railway line was taken up four years back with a revised cost of ₹927 crore, including ₹618.55 crore share to be borne by SCCL and the remaining ₹309.3 crore by the Railways.
By handing over the ₹62.17 crore cheque, the SCCL has paid the entire amount of its share for the rail line construction.
Use of machinery
Meanwhile, at a review meeting held on Friday over the performance of CHPs and machinery, particularly mechanised shovels, directors of the company S. Chandrasekhar, N. Balaram and D. Satyanarayana Rao said reaching production target of 70 million tonnes was possible only with the increased use of machinery. They suggested use of machinery from a maximum of 14 hours now to 18 hours a day.
They wanted the officials to improve the removal of overburden to at least 2 lakh cubic meters every day with the help of mechanised shovels. The directors also had a meeting with lorry transporters’ representatives and told them not to have any interruptions as the company had already changed the charges formula linked to the fluctuation of diesel prices.
