Heavy rains hamper coal production

Average daily coal output falls by almost 50%

July 25, 2021 10:05 pm | Updated 10:05 pm IST - BHADRADRI-KOTHAGUDEM

Though heavy rains that battered the coal belt region last week abated since Saturday, the recent spells of heavy downpour impeded coal production and overburden removal in almost all the opencast projects (OCPs) of Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) spread across six districts including Bhadradri-Kothagudem district.

The State-owned SCCL reportedly suffered a huge production loss to an extent of more than five lakh tonnes in all the 21 OCPs together in the company’s 11 areas due to heavy rainfall in the coal belt region last week, sources said.

The average daily coal output fell by almost 50% from 1.90 lakh tonnes to little over 90,000 tonnes in the past five days, sources added.

Excess rains took a heavy toll on overburden removal in the OCPs as rain water flooded sumps at the deep most points of the open cast coal mines in Kothagudem region.

The Manuguru area, which has a distinguished track record in meeting the set production targets, registered a significant drop in overburden removal to the extent of 50% daily in the past few days.

The Manuguru Area comprising the Manuguru OCP, the PKOC-IV and the PKOC-II has so far produced 41 lakh tonnes of coal as against the stipulated coal production target of 112 lakh tonnes in this financial year (2021-22).

The full-scale coal production in the OCPs is expected to resume in the next few days as intensive efforts are on to drain out the stagnant rain water that accumulated at various stretches of the open cast mines, SCCL sources said.

Dozens of high-capacity pumps and graders are being used to flush out the accumulated water and remove the slush to facilitate the full-scale coal production and overburden removal in the OCPs at the earliest.

In pursuit of its annual production target of 70 million tonnes of coal for the current fiscal, the SCCL management has laid renewed focus on scaling up coal production to compensate for the loss of production suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic during April and the recent spell of heavy rains.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.