Chennai: A feasibility report has been submitted to the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, stating that ’70 percent of coal can be extracted from other areas in Chandrabila mine in Odisha, excluding the forest area’.
In 2016, the central government allotted the Chandrabila mine in Angul district of Odisha, which has 90 thousand crore kg of coal reserves, to the Tamil Nadu Power Board. It is planned to take coal from there and use it in new thermal power plants. In November 2019, the Electricity Board called for a ‘tender’ to select a contractor to upgrade the Chandrapila mine and supply 1,000 crore kg of coal per year for 35 years. A percentage goes to the Forest Department of the Central Government.
To extract coal there, permission must be obtained from the Forest Department; There is a delay in obtaining the permission. Therefore, the power board decided at the beginning of this year to take coal from 70 percent of the non-forest areas. The work of preparing the feasibility report for this was carried out through a contract company. That company has now submitted a report that it can start coal extraction from non-forest areas. Following this, the power board is getting ready to select a company to upgrade the mine and extract coal and supply it to Tamil Nadu.
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