Mahagenco gets environmental clearance for Chhattisgarh coal mine
After a wait of over two years, Mahagenco has finally got environmental clearance from the ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) for its captive coal mine in Chhattisgarh. The mine — Gare Palma II — will supply coal to Koradi, Chandrapur and Parli power plants.
Coal ministry had allocated the block, located in Raigarh district, spread across 2,583.486 hectare with geological reserves of 1,059.761 million tonne in August 2016 to Mahagenco.
Purushottam Jadhav, director (mining) of Mahagenco, told TOI, “We now have to acquire land and get forest clearance. Since we are acquiring forest land, we will have buy and transfer equivalent land to forest department. All these processes would be done through Raigarh collector. This will take some time and we plan to start mining by March 2023.”
Mahagenco had appointed Adani Group as the mine developer and operator and Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) had granted approval for a coal mining agreement with it. The company is expected to launch production of 23.60 million tonne per annum (MTPA) from March 2023, which will increase to 29 MTPA from the seventh year onwards.
State energy department officers said Mahagenco, with 10,000MW of thermal capacity, annually requires 25 million tonne coal
