With just less than four months left in the current fiscal, the government-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) has expedited efforts to maximise the use of equipment for scaling up overburden removal and coal extraction, thereby achieving the overall annual coal output target of 680 lakh (68 million) tonnes by March 31, 2022.
The State-owned coal mining giant has set in motion an ambitious plan to produce 270 lakh tonnes of coal across all its mines in the remaining period of the present financial year to reach the set annual output target.
The plan envisages increasing the daily coal production to 2.15 lakh tonnes across all the coal mines located in 11 areas of the company with paramount focus on quality of coal and safety of the workforce, SCCL sources said.
It contains specific interventions to enhance overburden removal in the Opencast Projects (OCPs) up to 14.4 lakh cubic meters a day by optimally using the shovels and other equipment used in surface mining.
It lays emphasis on ensuring prompt supply of adequate explosives as per the indent to facilitate blasting operations in OCPs, an essential component of the surface mining, in compliance with safety norms, sources added.
The SCCL higher officials issued a set of guidelines to general managers of all the 11 coal mines to ensure efficient operation of equipment and boost productivity with safety of the workforce as top priority.
The fresh guidelines included increasing the operating time of the shovels and other equipment from 14 hours to 18 hours a day, enhancing the capacity of the coal handling plants (CHPs) and ensuring availability of adequate number of trucks/lorries at the coal mines/CHPs for seamless transportation of coal to the thermal power stations as per the Fuel Supply Agreements (FSAs).
