Western Coalfields plans to acquire 4,000 hectares of land for new projects

This land will be in the states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh

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Lining up an investment of Rs 3,486 crore on land acquisition to open 36 mines over a period of three years to ramp up its output, Western Coalfields (WCL), a Coal India subsidiary, is looking ahead to acquire nearly 4,000 hectares of land in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh this fiscal year to open new projects.

While presently having rights over 16,000 hectares of land, an addition of 4,000 hectares will imply its production capacity increasing to 100 million tonnes (mt).

As per the ministerial roadmap for Coal India, WCL will contribute 100 mt of output by 2020 to the Maharatna company's total output to meet the country's entire coal demand domestically.

This year, while the black diamond producer has been given a 48 mt production target, it is confident of exceeding the mark provided its pit-head stock is cleared by the monsoon and it is able to up is production capacity.

"We'll need a 100 mt capacity if we are able to produce 50 mt coal this year and that would mean opening new mines", chairman and managing director of WCL, R R Mishra said.

The Miniratna public sector enterprise is also lined up an investment of Rs 2,032 crore on installation of plant and machinery and another Rs 242 crore for exploration of mines.

"Thanks to the benefits our CSR activities are bringing in to the adjoining mining areas, we are not facing any hurdle in acquiring land," he said.

During 2015-16 (till February 2016), the company has already spent Rs 59.37 crore on CSR activities, which helped the company win the villagers' and local people's trust.

As per estimates, in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015, WCL had spent atleast Rs 850 crore on land acquisition and for opening new mines while Rs 350 crore was spent on plant and machinery. Last year it had opened 10 new projects after acquiring over 2,500 hectares of land which raised its production capacity by 20 mt.

During 2015-16, against a set target of 45.10 mt, the subsidiary of Coal India had produced 44.82 mt of coal recording a 8.9 per cent annual growth. It was in 2014-15 that the western coal miner first made a turnaround of 3.4 per cent after registering negative production growth for the previous five years.