Coal Neer to hit market in Aug with Rs8/litre

  • | Sunday | 22nd July, 2018

Similarly, the second RO plant is situated in Chandrapur and it too discharges 20,000 litre water per day. “Water is being supplied from the adjoining coal mines to this plant for purification. Mishra, however, denied it saying, “the intention of the WCL not to earn profit from this project. “The sand will be sold at 30% discount from the market price. In the first year, the loss was due to a low demand for coal.

Nagpur: The PSU coal miner, Western Coalfields Limited (WCL), which mines have “surplus groundwater” that comes out through coal extraction, has decided to use it for commercial purposes by making it potable and selling it at a cost of Rs8 per bottle, at least Rs12 lesser than the market price of other bottled water. This was announced by WCL chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) Rajiv R Mishra at a press conference here on Saturday.The move apparently shows that WCL in years to come may concentrate on using its water completely for commercial purposes. Mishra, however, denied it saying, “the intention of the WCL not to earn profit from this project. The WCL, in fact, will focus only in rural areas where people can get purified water at a very affordable price”.The WCL, as of now, reuses 42 crore lakh litre water per day and which benefits around 1.90 lakh population in 60 villages. The coalfields also provide water to 18 irrigation projects in the state.Talking in detail about the new project, Mishra said the WCL last year installed reverse osmosis (RO) water purification plant at Patasaongi, where its coal mines discharge 1.6 lakh litre water every day. Similarly, the second RO plant is situated in Chandrapur and it too discharges 20,000 litre water per day. Both the RO plants provide water free of cost to 56,000 people, Mishra said, adding the bottled water will be knows as “Coal Neer”.It has already started packaging bottled water which is being presently used for its in-house purposes. “Water is being supplied from the adjoining coal mines to this plant for purification. At this stage, we plan to purify and sell 1 lakh litre water every day,” he said and announced the bottled water to hit the market some time in August.Besides this, he said, the WCL is also contemplating to sell its “overburden” sand that comes out through coal extraction to open markets. “The sand will be sold at 30% discount from the market price. The WCL has already signed a pact with Nagpur Improvement Trust and is providing sand for law cost housing project under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna,” Mishra said and added that a large sand segregation plant with a capacity of 2,000 cubic metric per day would be planned at Gondegaon. It will be sold at a price of around Rs800 per cubic metre while the market rate is Rs1,500 per cubic meter, he said.The CMD further said 2016-17 and 2017-18 financial years were very poor for the WCL. During these two years, it suffered a loss of Rs1075.51 crore and Rs2829.28 crore, respectively. In the first year, the loss was due to a low demand for coal. In the next year, a major allocation had to be made towards wage hike and increase in the gratuity payable to the industries. Apart from it, another Rs900 crore had to be provided against overburden ratio reserve. The amount has to be kept aside as contingent expenditure which can incur during mining operations. The company, however, expects a turn around in the current year.

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