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New UserMahagenco gets captive coal mine in Nagpur district
15 Jul 2015
Hard work by state energy minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule has finally paid off with coal minister Piyush Goyal allocating a captive coal block to Mahagenco. The Mahajanwadi block is located in Nagpur district and has 340 million tonnes (MT) coal. Earlier, the NDA government had allocated Gare Palma II coal block to Mahagenco. This block has 1,059 MT coal.
The six new units of Mahagenco having total generation capacity of 3,230 MW do not have any coal linkage and the two captive blocks will help them become operational. Their annual requirement is around 18 MT. The present requirement of Mahagenco having coal fired capacity of 7,980 MW is about 46 MT per annum.
In another welcome development, the coal ministry has decided to increase share of WCL coal to Mahagenco by 1.7 MT per annum by reducing the same quantity from other sources. This step has been taken under linkage rationalization policy of the ministry. Genco at present gets about 22 MT from WCL and rest from MCL, SECL and SCCL.
Due to various constraints, MCL has been unable to supply the contracted quantity of coal to Genco for years. WCL, on the other hand, by and large supplies the required quantity. As the WCL mines are closer to Genco's power stations the transport cost is lower.
Mahagenco along with Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Limited (GSECL) had been allocated Machhakata coal block in Odisha in 2006. The two companies had formed a joint venture Mahaguj to mine the coal. The contract had been given to Adani. However, due to land acquisition problems the mine could not become operational. Last year the Supreme Court cancelled the allocation along with several others.
Thanking the coal ministry for allocating the mine, a senior Mahagenco officer said that Mahagenco would appoint a mining development operator (MDO) for Gare Palma II and Mahajanwadi blocks.
While the two captive blocks have solved the coal problem for new units in the long run, the state government will have to keep looking around for coal for them in the short run. Even if everything goes right, it will be months before mining starts in the two blocks.