Bhubaneswar, July 1: With Orissa rolling out its proposed steel and power plants, the state would require an additional 100MT of coal every year, stated the commissioner of the department of steel and mines Ashok Dalwai.

Dalwai was addressing a seminar — CoalNEX — organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry. The government has inked 73 MoUs to set up power projects and sponge iron-based steel projects. “It has therefore become necessary to arrange an assured supply of non-coking coal to the tune of 210MTPA for these projects,” said Dalwai.

Keeping in mind the MCL’s coal production capacity in the future and the availability of coal from captive coal blocks, an additional 100MTPA of coal needs to be produced to meet industry requirements, he warned.

Inaugurating the seminar, minister for steel and mines Raghunath Mohanty said the state’s production of coal has reached 98MTPA. The state has signed some 21 MoUs for the power sector for the best utilisation of coal reserves for an expected power generation capacity of 25970MW and total investment would be around Rs 1,8000 crore.

Meanwhile, chief minister Naveen Pattnaik has also requested the Centre’s to allocate coal blocks with a reserve of 5000MT, preferably in contiguous locations, in favour of Orissa PSUs.

The project advisor in the ministry of coal, P.R. Mondal, assured that the government demands would be taken up seriously and added that the expansion of coal projects would be imminent at the changing economic scenario. “Due to smaller problems, nation’s development cannot be put on hold,” he said.

Orissa is the second largest coal-bearing state of the country, but has got coal-reserve allocation for only 7.67 per cent of the total allotted quantity for commercial use of coal.

Increasing coal production to meet domestic demand requirement is absolutely essential to decrease the country’s dependence on energy imports.

State PSUs — Orissa Mining Corporation Limited and Orissa Hydro Power Corporation Limited — in 2007 had submitted applications for allotment of coal blocks to supply power to plants with a capacity of 5000MW and needing coal reserve of 1150MT.

But, the actual allocation for the government PSUs was 500MT in two blocks.

With over 75 per cent of the country’s reserves located in Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Bengal, these states should strive to transform themselves into power hubs, experts said.