Date:19/03/2007 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/03/19/stories/2007031903310300.htm

Back Coal India plans to set up washeries in all new mines

Ambarish Mukherjee

Private operators will manage them

Mines to be linked with a pithead power station would be exempted from the provision.

New Delhi March 18 In a move that may significantly increase the availability of coal having high utilisable heat value (UHV), Coal India Ltd (CIL) has decided to mandatorily set up a washery in all new mines that would be opened up from now.

Currently, steel and cement manufacturers import the major chunk of their coal requirement because of the low heat content in coal supplied by Coal India.

India has about11 per cent of the world's coking coal deposits. However, because of the poor variety, Indian companies go for large-scale imports. Washing would significantly increase the UHV of Indian coal.

CIL would be setting up these washeries with its own investment but their management would be given to private operators; regular inspection would be carried out by CIL's quality control department. The washeries would be set up over 2-4 years.

"Washing the coal is the only way to increase the heat value. For this, the model that the company plans to follow is to engage private companies to build and operate the washeries while ownership would remain with Coal India," Mr Partha Bhattacharya, Chairman, told Business Line.

CIL has already issued guidelines to subsidiaries that a mandatory provision of a coal washery with modern technology has to be incorporated while preparing project reports for all opencast mines with annual capacity of 2.5 million tonnes.

However, those mines to be linked with a pithead power station would be exempted from the provision, since the coal would be directly utilised in the thermal power station.

As of now, CIL subsidiaries run some washeries and a number of private washeries are also given the job.

However, there have been several complaints on the functioning of these private washeries as the waste recovered often contains substantial heat value and this is eventually sold in the market, in violation of washing norms.

Proper coal washing requires that the waste should contain 65 per cent or more ash, but this is mostly not done, according to the officials.