Piyush Goyal inaugurates open cast project in Nagpur

Union Minister for Power and Coal Piyush Goyal inaugurated the largest open cast project in the Western Coalfields Limited (WCL) in western state of Maharashtra.

The project will have a production capacity of four-million tonnes per year.

"The company which has been under loss for the last three years, this year that company has seen an increase in production and WCL, which was running in losses, is now incurring profit. Today we have opened up three of its mines, likewise in the coming days, Coal India and WCL both have pledged to open one mine every month," said Goyal.

The power minister of Maharashtra, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, was also present at the event.

"Western Coalfield Limited is going to create new history from today, which we have inaugurated. Not only this is the biggest mine of WCL but it will be the first one to use modern technology on surface miners," he added.

Goyal said the mining from this open field will first meet the requirements of all the end users through a transparent auction process so that more and more mines are available to them. Then it will be given to all the states so that their own requirement of coal for their power plant is adequately taken care of.

About 6,000,000 tonnes of coal from these projects will be supplied to power plants for generation of electricity and about 1,000,000 tonnes of coal will be supplied to other consumers in Maharashtra.

The minister also said with the opening of these projects a large number of indirect employment opportunities will be generated for the villages surrounding these mines as they will promote industrialisation.

Infrastructure like roads, schools, medical facilities drinking water, and more will be strengthened in the surrounding villages with the CSR (corporate social responsibility) programmes of WCL.

The quality of life of people of the surrounding villages will improve which will bring positive change in the lives of people living in and around the area.