Output growth, renewable energy in int'l coal meet agenda

Technocrats from across the world are set to deliberate a host of issues surrounding the country's coal sector, including growth in production and the use of non-conventional energy, at an upcoming conference in Madhya Pradesh.

The two-day international conference on Opencast Mining Technology and Sustainability will seek to address some of the challenges in way of the government's ambitious 1-billion tonne coal production target by fiscal 2021-22.

Union Coal Minister Piyush Goyal had recently called for revival of the production aim in Coal India Ltd's foundation day address, and urged its employees to take up the challenge.

The December 14-15 seminar at Singrauli is organised by Coal India subsidiary Northern Coalfields Ltd, in association with the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi and AKS University, Satna.

"This would be the first-of-its-kind conference on open cast mining, technology and sustainability in India. We are expecting a huge number of technocrats across the globe participating and deliberating on the challenges for high growth rate in production in a sustainable manner," NCL Chairman and Managing Director Prabhat Kumar Sinha told PTI.

Sinha said coal, despite being a primary ingredient in the fossil fuel-based energy sector, is slowly being replaced by non-conventional energy, and in this transitory stage, it is important for the industry to "reorient" itself.

Coal India Chairman A K Sinha had revised the mining major's production aim to 652 million tonne as aspirational target in the current fiscal as against 630 million tonne set earlier.

In the next five years, NCL expects to produce coal in the range of 125-130 million tonne a year, a company official said.

Coal mining activities of NCL are confined to the Moher sub-basin, where all operations are being carried out through 10 opencast mines.