Union Coal Secretary to visit Odisha

Odisha Channel Bureau Angul, Feb 3: Union Coal Secretary Anil Swarup is paying a three day visit to Odisha from Thursday mainly to take stock of the coal production of the Mahanadi Coalfields Limited, the flagship company of Coal India Limited (CIL).MCL, the second largest coal subsidiary of CIL, has been asked by the Ministry to produce 127 million tonne (MT) in the current fiscal, while it made an output of 110 (MT) in last financial year.It is a jump of 17 million tonne in a single year, the highest task given to any CIL company, CIL sources say.According to MCL official sources, the Coal Secretary after arriving at Bhubaneswar on Thursday will rush to Talcher coalfield to inspect some of the coal mines and will return to Bhubaneswar the same day.Swarup will stay at Bhubaneswar till Saturday and will have talks with the State Government officials on various contentious issues.He will hold a review meeting with senior MCL officials before he leaves for New Delhi.The Coal Secretary is likely to discuss with State Government officials on the bottlenecks before the MCL performances which is to double its annual output by 2019.There is a wide concern in MCL as well as in CIL over the downward trend in the coal production in MCL by the end of January last.According to the official figure, MCL which by the end the end of November and December was ahead of the target has remained behind the target by January 31.Its production was at 97.8 MT as against the target of 100.6 MT by January 31.It, however, had a growth of about 11.2 per cent over the last year output of 87.93 MT.Want of environment clearance for Belpahar mine, workers’ strike for two days and poor performances by some Talcher mines are said to be the reason behind the setback.State officials on the other hand are likely to take up the vexed issues of the coal block auction or allocation which has affected the steel sector in Odisha. It is because the Centre has earmarked some of the blocks in the State to power sector which was earlier allocated to steel industries.MCL performances not only now remains a concern of the Centre but also of State Government when State Chief Secretary G.C.Pati held a high level review meeting with MCL and district officials here last Saturday on MCL.