KORBA, Apr 29 State government has suffered revenue loss worth Rs 500 crores, owing to BALCO, in the past two years. BALCO had taken the tender of Chotiya coal mine but stopped mining on 13th April, 2020. The company had taken mining lease on higher premium rate, thus incurring loss. In order to avoid the loss, it started procuring coal from SECL at cheaper rates. On the other hand, BALCO ( Vedanta Limited) management received numerous notices regarding mining and finally wrote a letter to Nominate Authority (Coal), New Delhi, to surrender the mine. In case the process does not meet technical resistance, Chotiya mine shall soon be free of BALCO ( Vedanta Limited) ownership.
Located in Podi-Uprora block, Chotiya coal mine was allocated to Prakash Industries in year 2003. In 2015, Vedanta Group acquired the mine by making the higher bid. However, the company could not start mining due to legal obstacles. In 2018, public hearing for Chotiya-2 captive coal mining took place at village Salaigot. The annual production capacity of the mine is 1 million tonnes, including both opencast and underground mine. After gaining permission from central government, BALCO ( Vedanta Limited) managed to start coal mining from this 1179 hectares of mine, on the basis of lease for 20 years. However, the management stopped mining on 13 April, 2020, during the pandemic. The mining was discontinued and has not restarted till date, incurring revenue loss of Rs 250 crores per year to the state government. Thus, the loss in last two years has reached Rs 500 crores.
It needs a mention that BALCO ( Vedanta Limited) had secured the lease of Chotiya coal mine by making the highest bid. The annual premium of the mine is Rs 3000. Including processing cast, mining royalty, DMF and cess, the mine proved quite costly to BALCO. In order to avoid this loss, the company started purchasing coal from SECL for operating the 3 thermal power plants of 540, 270 and 1200 megawatts, respectively. The power sector is quite cheap and thus, BALCO ( Vedanta Limited) received cheaper coal from SECL. Owing to fuel supply agreement, BALCO had no issues in getting coal from SECL.
Owing to the revenue loss, Minerals Department has started coming down hard on BALCO. The department has issued several notices to the company for starting coal mining. The same has been reported to state government as well but BALCO is not ready to start coal production. Finally, it has written a letter to Nominate Authority (Coal), New Delhi, to surrender the mine.
Deputy Director of Mining Administration, SS Naag said that BALCO has stopped coal mining from 13 April, 2020, incurring annual loss of Rs 250 crores for the state government. Several notices have been sent to BALCO management and the company has finally written a letter to Nominate Authority (Coal), to surender the mine. Further action will be taken after the order from the Authority.
