Talcher (Angul, Odisha): Coal Secretary Dr Anil Kumar Jain (IAS) has laid the foundation stone of a 20 million tonne per year (MTPY) capacity First Mile Connectivity (FMC) project/rapid loading system at Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) on December 12, said an official statement released by MCL. Dr Jain, who was accompanied by Additional Coal Secretary M Nagaraju (IAS), PK Sinha, Chairman-cum-Managing Director, MCL, Binay Dayal, Director (Technical), Coal India Limited, was on a two-day official visit to Odisha.
The Secretary laid the foundation stone of the Rs 280 crore FMC project, having coal despatch capacity of 20 MTPY, at Ananta under Jagannath Area of the company. MCL is aggressively implementing first-mile connectivity projects with a capital outlay of Rs 3,600 crore by 2024 for the rapid movement of coal to consumers.
Director (Technical) OP Singh, Director (Finance) KR Vasudevan, and Director (Personnel) Keshav Rao were the senior officers of MCL present on the occasion.
Coal India has placed increased focus on developing FMC and railway projects to facilitate evacuation of coal via rail mode. Transportation of coal via rail mode and conveyor belts causes less pollution in comparison to transport by road. The plan to develop rail projects for evacuation of coal is part of Coal India's efforts to ensure clean transportation of coal at its end. The coal PSU has earmarked Rs 14,000 crore for development of FMC projects in two phases by 2025 and Rs 19,650 crore for railway projects by 2024.
The FMC projects are being developed in tandem with the goal to achieve 1 Billion Tonne (BT) of coal production by 2024-25.
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