Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL), a Coal India subsidiary, has come out of the purview of the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), a good 15 years after it was referred to the statutory body.
ECL?s negative net worth was still at R2,055 crore when it ended FY14 with a net profit of R872.33 crore. Its net profit compared to FY13 was down 89.89%, posing fresh challenges to the company. But September 22 became a land mark date for ECL when the BIFR, according to a Coal India (CIL) revival plan, gave the go ahead to loan waiver and conversion of debt into equity, which transform the negative net worth to a positive one. What CIL was actually looking to achieve in FY17 happened in September 2014 and ECL was out of the BIFR fold.
According to Subrata Chakravarty, ECL?s director technical, the company’s production level has seen a remarkable improvement in the last five years. From 20- 21 million tonne in 2008, production has come to 36mt in 2014. ?This growth in production has to be sustained,? Chakravarty said.
The CIL subsidiary is poised to achieve a record-breaking production level of 45 mt by the end of the 12th Plan period, aided by six new projects of a combined production capacity of more than 14 million tonne per annum. Hura ?C? (open cast mine, capacity- 3 mtpa), Chupervita (open cast, 4 mtpa), Chitra East (open cast, 2.5mtpa), North Searsole (open caste, 2 mtpa), Simlong (open cast, 2 mtpa) and New Kenda (open cast, 1.2 mtpa) are under various stages of development.
ECL has further planned mining at Khottadih (under ground mine, 1 mtpa), Jhanjra Low (0.72 mtpa), Tilaboni (under ground mine, 1.86 mtpa), Kumardihi ?B? (0.51 mtpa) and Siduli (under ground mine, capacity 0.51 mtpa) using continuous technology. ?All these projects will create a solid foundation for ECL to remain in the growth trajectory,? Chakravarty said.
Mechanised underground mining holds the key to meet the burgeoning future demand for coal. Coal at open cast mines or shallow depth would soon get exhausted, making further mining non-viable. So ECL has introduced underground operations through mass production technologies. The mass production technologies are in the form of continuous miner & longwall mining. At present three continuous miners are working and the longwall panel is on the verge of taking off.
With the introduction of longwall technology at Jhanjra, this underground mine will have an installed capacity of 3.2 mtpa, the highest for any CIL underground mine. Chakravarty said ECL was contemplating use of mobile crushing units in all major contracts at strategic locations. This would improve the quality of coal supplied and there would be proper sizing. ?Five such mobile crushing units are already in operation and 10 more will be made operational shortly,? Chakravarty said.
Introduction of e-tendering and GPRS-based truck monitoring systems was part of the major initiatives taken by ECL during the last five years. ?I would rate e-tendering as one of the epoch-making achievements,? Chakravarty said. The introduction of e-tendering and e-procurement systems departmentally, the online system of carrying out the entire cycle of tender formulation, tender publishing, bid submission, bid opening, auto evaluation and finally the award of a contract was a huge development in achieving efficiency and transparency in the system. Without an effective, efficient and transparent system in place one cannot expect production to grow and revenue to flow.
ECL was incorporated as a subsidiary of CIL in November 1975. It took over 414 mines vested with the Eastern Division of Coal Mines Authority Ltd. But from inception, the company had been making huge losses, mostly because of sub-optimal operations rendered by old mining technology. So reviving the CIL subsidiary required bringing in new technologies, increasing efficiency and ensuring transparency in the system. These down the line would lead to increased productivity resulting in increased revenue and higher profit
indronil.roychowdhury@expressindia.com