State to strengthen SCCL

Hyderabad: The State government is making plans for expanding and strengthening the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), in all probability. In the next five years, 20 more opencast mines and 11 underground mines will be established. The production target of the SCCL by 2020-2021 will be about 900 lakh tons per year. With this, all the thermal power stations in the State as well as several industries will get coal supply. About 11,621 more jobs will be created as a result of this expansion.

Making a statement in the Assembly here on Thursday, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao said though the underground mining was causing losses, keeping in view the survival of the workers, the State government was going ahead with underground mining. The government is also making efforts to reduce the losses in underground mining. After the formation of Telangana government, multi-level meetings were held with the workers to explain all issues in detail. This has resulted in workers and officials to work with renewed enthusiasm. Due to this, SCCL has produced 600 lakh tons of coal in 2015-16 and registered an impressive 15 per cent growth. It even surpassed Public Sector Undertaking like the Coal India and other corporations.

Chandrashekar Rao said the workforce in underground mines was 61 per cent whereas in the opencast mines the work force was 18 per cent. As on date, SCCL has 46 mines, of which, 30 are underground and 16 are opencast mines. Telangana has about 10,528 million tons of coal deposits in the region. Under SCCL, about 1,249 million tons of coal is excavated. There are adequate coal deposits to excavate for the next century. The labour and sacrifice could only be compared to the great service and sacrifices being made by our brave soldiers on the borders, Chandrashekar Rao said. The amount of commitment and awareness shown by these workers during the separate Telangana movement was unforgettable. Hence the government had decided to give more benefits to the SCCL workforce, the Chief Minister added.

“SCCL is the only company in South India which produces coal. The coal produced by the SCCL is helping thermal power plants in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, apart from Telangana by supplying coal. About 600 lakh tons of coal is being produced by the company every year. Singareni is also supplying coal to sponge iron, cement, fertilizers and pharma companies,” Chandrashekar Rao said.

He said the government had also kept its election promise of restoring dependents’ job rights. “Earlier, workers used to go into the mines wearing heavy-weight cap lamps. We have spent lakhs of rupees and provided the workers with cap lamps whose weight is about just 400 grams. Earlier, workers were made to walk for 2 to 5 kilometers in the mine, now we have introduced riding system in the mines, which even Coal India does not have in all its mines,” he said.

The SCCL officials visited Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, China, Germany, France, the UK and Canada to explore the possibilities. About 13 companies all over the world expressed interest to work with the SCCL. However, due to fall in the prices of coal internationally, the matter was kept pending for the time being, the Chief Minister said.