CIL to issue EOI for 26 abandoned mines; open for joint ventures

New Delhi, Jul 3 (UNI) Coal India Ltd (CIL) CMD P S Bhattacharyya has said his company was open to joint ventures with private firms for reviving the 26 abandoned mines, which have total capacity of 1.3 billion tonnes of coal.

Mr Bhattacharyya also disclosed that plans were afoot to get the company listed on the bourses and said it was open to giving a stake to the displaced person as a result of making mines operational.

He made these remarks while addressing a meeting of the PHD Chamber of Commerce here.

As part of efforts to restructure, the Kolkata-based company also plans to phase out 60 under performing mines.

''We will issue EOI for 26 mines, which have been abandoned, but have the resource in them,'' Mr Bhattacharyya said.

Giving details, Mr Bhattacharyya said out of these 26 coal mines, 10 are of coking coal with capacity of 350 million tonnes while the rest 16 mines are based on non-coking coal.

The company, which contributes 84 per cent of the total coal production in the country, is open for joint venture for development of these mines, he added.

Mr Bhattacharyya said, ''there is a strong case for phasing out 60 mines, which cannot be technologically revived.'' The company has incurred a loss of Rs 1,000 crore on these mines, he said.

The state-owned firm targets to increase coal production by about 160 million tonnes in the current five-year-plan to 521 million tonnes from 360.9 million tonnes achieved in the previous five-year-plan.

UNI MP PDT UCS1114