Coal India, public sector miner, is planning to invest Rs 7,500 crore in next three-four years to develop railway tracks and related infrastructure to evacuate coal from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha. This initiative will facilitate company to evacuate around 100 million tonnes (mt) of additional coal from each of the States.
The company is not able to transport more than 2-3 mt of coal through roads. Therefore, the remaining reserves remain unexplored. Most of the mines in these States have the capacity to produce around 10 mt. Non-availability of transportation though Railways has been preventing the company from extracting coal from mines, the demand for which has surged from power plants.
