The Union Coal Ministry has allocated two coal blocks to iron ore mining company NMDC for commercial mining. These include the Rohne and Tokisud North under Section 5(1) of the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015, located at the Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand. Both the blocks are located at an aerial distance of 10-15 km apart.
The Rohne coal block has extractable reserves of 191 million tonnes (mt) and planned production capacity of 8 million tonnes per annum whereas the Tokisud North coal block has extractable reserves of about 52 million tones of thermal coal and planned production capacity of 2.32 million tones per annum. Rohne coal block has coking coal which may require washing before feeding into steel plant and thus NMDC is exploring the possibility for setting up coal washeries.
NMDC is planning to execute allotment agreement of Tokisud North coal block on December 24, 2019. The Rohne coal block allotment agreement would be executed as per the directives from Ministry of Coal with respective execution date. The allotment of the two blocks bears testimony to NMDC’s relentless efforts to pursue domestic coal assets. The company has set up its Coal Division at Hyderabad exclusively for looking at coal assets in India to provide linkage to the steel and power sector
