Heavy rains hamper coal production

Average daily coal output falls by almost 50%

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.