Representative image of coal.
Credit: iStock Photo
Kolkata: South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) announced on Sunday that it had surpassed 100 million tonnes of coal dispatched for the current fiscal year, achieving a growth of 17.65 per cent over the previous year when the Coal India subsidiary dispatched 85 million tonnes of dry fuel.
Of the total dispatch, more than 80 per cent went to the power sector, with the company sending around 81 million tonnes of coal to thermal power plants across the country, according to company officials.
"This is the fastest 100 MT coal dispatch achieved by the company since its inception. The company's mega projects Gevra, Dipka, and Kusmunda, located in Korba district (of Chhattisgarh), have made significant contributions to the total dispatch of 100 million tonnes of coal," said SECL Chairman and Managing Director Prem Sagar Mishra.
SECL’s Gevra mine, currently the largest coal mine in the country, contributed 30.3 million tonnes, while Dipka and Kusmunda contributed 19.1 MT and 25.1 MT of coal, respectively. The total share of all three mega projects in the total dispatch has been more than 74 per cent, he said.
In addition to this, SECL's Korea Rewa coalfield, where most of the old and underground mines are located, also made a notable contribution of 11.75 MT, an increase of about 20 per cent compared to last year when the figure was 9.75 MT.
As many as 71 thermal power plants in the country dependent on domestic coal have reported critical stock levels (less than 25 per cent of the normative level ) for the dry fuel, according to the latest Central Electricity Authority (CEA) data.
There has been some improvement in supply to power plants in the last two weeks, CEA data showed.
SECL is one of the largest coal-producing subsidiaries of Coal India. The company produced 167 MT of coal and accounted for about one-fourth of CIL’s total coal production in FY'23. This year, the company has set a target of 197 MT of coal production.