BCCL CMD Tapas Kumar Lahiry

Bouyed by encouraging financial results, Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) is looking to initiate several measures to meet its social obligations with commitments ranging from seeking environmental clearances for its mines and sharing surplus mine water with residents to help people deal with a harsh summer.

At a news conference at Koyla Bhavan on Monday, BCCL CMD Tapas Kumar Lahiry said that during the last financial year, the company achieved 30.202 million tonne coal production and registered a growth of about 4.13 per cent.

The production figure for 2010-11 was 29.004 million tonne.

Lahiry said the company’s efforts were all the more laudable in the face of challenges from the beginning of the year, including protests against anti-encroachment drives in Matkuria and consequent police firing on April 27, 2011, followed by unearthing of a coal stock scam in Kustore and the Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board (JSPCB) serving closure notices on several collieries.

“Not only in coal production, the company also created a record in coal dispatch during the last year as a total of 30.102 million tonne was dispatched during 2011-12, which is the highest-ever figure since the inception of the company in 1973,” Lahiry said.

He added the company registered a growth of about 2.60 per cent in coal dispatch compared to 2010-11 when 29.341 million tonne was dispatched.

“If the current production trend continues, we expect the company to come out of BIFR (Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction) by the end of December 2012,” Lahiry added.

During his interaction with the media, the CMD was accompanied by senior officials including director personnel P.E. Kachchap, director technical (operations) D.C. Jha, director technical (project and planning) A. Sarkar and chief of medical service S. Gupta.

On environmental clearances, director technical (operations) Jha said among 17 clusters, one had received a nod, while public hearings on 10 others had been held by JSPCB.

Also, 137.40 hectare of mined area had been handed over to the divisional forest department to carry out plantation.

“For the first in Coal India Limited, the company has taken steps to ecologically restore a mined area and plantation has started on eight hectares at Tetulmari and Sijua areas of BCCL,” said Jha.

Director personnel Kachchap said Rs 40 crore had been invested for developing residential quarters in various BCCL colonies while a further investment of around Rs 30 crore would be made during the next year (2012-13).

Regarding CSR activities, the director personnel said hand pumps and deep bore wells with submersible pumps had been installed in 40 villages, while surplus mine water from Barora, Block II and Govindpur areas had been made available for the people.