Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has directed officials of the AP Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC) to allot the entire coal mined from the Suliyary block in Madhya Pradesh to the thermal power plants in the state.
This means the state will get around 5 million tonnes of coal for its thermal power plants. The APMDC is likely to get environmental clearances for the Suliyary block and production is likely to start after four years. Several thermal power plants have been proposed to be set up in the state which will be ready to produce power after coal blocks are allotted.
The state proposes to generate an additional 2,000 MW of thermal power in the next four years for which 9.2 million tonnes of coal is required. The APMDC’s coal block will meet 60 per cent of the requirement and the remaining will be imported, say officials.
The government is also planning to convert the proposed gas-based power plants at Sankarapally and Nedunur in Telangana into coal-based thermal power plants if sufficient coal is available.
According to Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) officials, SCCL produced 52 million tonnes of coal last year, of which it supplied 33 million tonnes to power plants in the state. This year, the company’s production in the first six months was 23.3 million tonnes, which is 6.7 per cent higher than the production level in the corresponding period last year.
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