Heavy downpour affects coal production in Singareni mines

According to SCCL officials, due to continuous rain, the company has stopped the operation of heavy machinery in the open cast mines, affecting the coal production severely.

Hyderabad: The incessant rains have hit coal production in the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) with water entering opencast and underground mines in the coal belt areas. Coal production, which hovers around 2 lakh metric tonnes a day, has fallen to 1.3 lakh MT in the last one week.

The State-owned coal mining company has 18 opencast and 24 underground coal mines spread across the State’s coal belt region and the ongoing heavy downpour has led to stagnation of water in the open cast mines in Manuguru, Kothagudem and Yellandu areas, affecting coal production and overburden removal works in these coal mines.

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According to SCCL officials, due to continuous rain, the company has stopped the operation of heavy machinery in the open cast mines, affecting the coal production severely. In order to drain rain water from mines, the company has been using high-capacity motors at all the open cast mines, officials said.

SCCL chairman and managing director N Sridhar, who has been reviewing the situation, reportedly told officials to make up for the loss of production due to incessant rains and prepare an action plan to step up coal production in the underground mines during the peak monsoon season ahead.

He directed the General Managers of the mine areas to take special measures to avoid stagnation of production in the surface mines during the rainy season. Appropriate plans should be made to achieve coal production without reducing to 2 lakh tonnes per day in the next three months, he said.

Last year too, due to heavy rains, the company could not achieve the coal production target during the second quarter, an official said. In the first quarter of the current financial year (April to June), the company has achieved its set targets. The target of coal production for this period was set as 167 lakh tonnes but it exceeded 171 lakh tonnes . The company has set an ambitious annual target of 750 lakh tonnes during the current fiscal.