Coal mining starts at Chhattisgarh's Parsa mine for supply to Raj power plants

Jaipur, Mar 21 (PTI) Coal mining has started from Parsa mine in Chhattisgarh this month, in a step towards ensuring adequate availability of coal to the power plants of the state, an official statement said on Friday.
     As per the statement, the coal ministry has allotted three coal mines in Chhattisgarh Parsa East and Kanta Basan (PEKB), Parsa, and Kente Extension to Rajasthan State Electricity Generation Corporation for thermal power plants of 4,340 MW capacity.
     Till now, coal was being continuously supplied from PEKB mine. Now in this direction, mining has also been started from Parsa mine.
     So far, coal is being mined from two of the three captive coal blocks from which the thermal power plants of the state are receiving about 13 coal racks per day, which will be increased to 14 in the near future.
     Energy Minister Hiralal Nagar said to meet the additional demand of coal for the power plants of the state, the state government is continuously making efforts to start mining from the allotted mine Kente Extension in Surguja district in the coming days.
     He said under the guidance of Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma, with the cooperation of the Chhattisgarh government and coordination with the central government, the Kente Extension coal block is also moving towards development and coal will also be available from here in the near future.
     Nagar said mining will help in continuous supply of coal to the thermal power plants of the state. This will reduce dependence on Coal India. More and more racks will be available from its own captive coal mines, which will help in uninterrupted power supply to the people of the state.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)