The central government has cleared allotment of a 701 million tonne coal block in the Talcher coalfields in Odisha to AP Genco, according to sources in the Chief Minister Office.
Genco applied for coal blocks in response to a notification issued by the Union ministry of coal last year.
The ministry has allocated the Sarapal-Nuapara block in the Talcher coalfields to AP Genco on the recommendation of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC). The geographical reserve of this coal block is 701 million tonnes and the average grade of coal ‘E/F’.
The coal from this block can meet the requirement of coal for generation of 4,000 MW of power for 30 years. AP Genco got the third highest coal reserves in this allocation, next to NTPC (1,995 million tonnes) and Odisha Thermal Power Corporation Limited (1,234 million tonnes).
Earlier, the Tadicherla-I coal block in Karimnagar district having reserves of 45 million tonnes was allotted to APGenco by the coal ministry to meet the coal requirement for the 600 MW Kakatiya Thermal Power Project Stage-II. Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) was nominated as mine developer-cum-operator (MDO). Development of this coal block is in progress.
The coal ministry has allocated 14 coal blocks for power sector. Of the 318 applications received by the ministry, 276 have been found to be complete in all respects and, of these, 235 pertained to 14 coal blocks for power. Around 15 states and six central PSUs have been allocated coal blocks.
Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy thanked the central government, prime minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for the allocation of the 701 million tonne Sarapal-Nuapara coal block in the Talcher coalfields to AP.