Singareni Collieries Company Limited has set a daily target of removing 14.15 lakh cubic metres of overburden from its opencast mines, linking the pace of excavation directly to coal production and supplies to Telangana’s thermal power stations.
Singareni CMD Dr Buddhaprakash Jyoti fixed the target during a review of coal production at the company’s opencast mines. He said coal could be extracted from the seams below only when overburden removal was carried out in line with prescribed targets.
The Kothagudem region, which includes the Kothagudem, Sathupalli, Yellandu and Manuguru areas, has been assigned a combined daily overburden-removal target of 5.5 lakh cubic metres. The region produces the highest quantity of coal within Singareni’s operations.
Area-wise, Kothagudem has been assigned a daily target of producing 8,000 tonnes of coal and removing 0.55 lakh cubic metres of overburden. Sathupalli has been given a coal-production target of 50,000 tonnes and an overburden-removal target of 2.4 lakh cubic metres a day. Manuguru’s daily targets are 40,000 tonnes of coal and 2.25 lakh cubic metres of overburden, while Yellandu has been assigned 5,000 tonnes of coal production and 10,000 cubic metres of overburden removal each day.
The targets place machinery, manpower and contractor performance at the centre of Singareni’s immediate production plan. Jyoti said the management would not be lenient towards agencies that showed negligence in overburden removal. He directed officials to prepare proposals for new contracts promptly and secure the required approvals.
The company’s production schedule is also tied to fuel movement for the state’s electricity system. According to the report, Singareni will need to supply 75,000 tonnes of coal daily to Telangana GENCO thermal power stations in view of El Niño conditions. The company must also maintain supplies to power stations covered by its fuel supply agreements.
Overburden consists of the soil and rock that must be removed before coal seams can be accessed in an opencast mine. The operational target therefore affects both the immediate availability of coal and the volume of material that mining agencies must excavate, transport and manage. The review meeting brought together Singareni directors, senior corporate officials, general managers from the four Kothagudem-region areas, mine officials and overburden contractors.
Singareni has not announced a separate implementation deadline for the revised contracts in the report. The immediate next steps are the preparation and approval of contract proposals, followed by the deployment of adequate machinery and manpower to meet the daily targets.
