Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Nov 15: Going ahead with its plan to set up a power plant in Orissa at an investment of Rs 10,000 crore, state-run miner Coal India will appoint a consultant in this fiscal who would provide help in setting up the project. “We would appoint a consultant in the current fiscal which would help us in providing modalities for setting up of Rs 10,000 crore power plant,” Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) Chairman-cum-Managing Director A K Jha told PTI.
Coal India-arm Mahanadi Coalfields will set up the 1,600 MW super critical thermal power plant in Sundargarh district of Orissa. The 2×800 megawatt (MW) plant at the mouth of a coal field in the Mahanadi basin will mark the coal producer’s foray into the power sector. Jha said the company is looking at setting up power plants at mines from where evacuation of coal in the absence of road and rail transport infrastructure is difficult.
Stating that the preliminary work for the proposed power project has already begun, Jha said that the land for the plant has been identified and the process for obtaining coal linkages is underway. He further said CIL has set production target of 550 million tonne for 2015-16 and MCL’s share will be 150 MT. MCL had earlier said it wished to set up a 2×800 MW pit-head super critical thermal power plant in the vicinity of the Basundhara-Garjanbahal coal mines with a joint venture partner.
A special purpose vehicle (SPV), namely, Mahanadi Basin Power Ltd (MBPL) has been incorporated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of MCL for setting up the project. With the proposed power plant, Coal India will foray into power production. Besides setting up of this power plant, MCL is gearing up to meet a target of producing 150 million tonne of coal during the current financial year. It plans to ramp up its production from current 121 MT to 150 MT, making up for more than 25 per cent of the CIL production. Coal India has set for itself a target of 550MT during 2015-16 up from last year’s 494 MT.
