SECRETARY, Ministry of Coal Amrit Lal Meena held a meeting with Chief Secretary, Government of Chhattisgarh Amitabh Jain at Mantralaya Mahanadi Bhawan, Raipur on Thursday to discuss on different issues related to ongoing mining projects of SECL and to ensure better co-ordination with the State Government for better operation of mines.

He was accompanied by Additional Secretary, Ministry of Coal VismitaTej and Chairman cum Managing Director (CMD) of SECL Dr Prem Sagar Mishra. During the meeting important discussions were held on issues related to SECL’s operations including environmental clearances, forest clearances, land acquisition, expected cooperation from the State Government in expansion of projects, rehabilitation and resettlement in respect of SECL’s mega projects Gevra and Kusmunda. In the meeting Meena emphasised on time bound completion of the projects with mutual coordination and co-operation with the State Government. It is to be noted that the Gevra Mega project of SECL recently became the first mine in the country to achieve 50-million tons (MT) of coal production.

It is currently being expanded and developed to achieve 70-MT production which would make it the largest coal producing mine in Asia. In view of this, the meeting was very crucial as expansion plans of mine involve coordinating with the state government for expedited land acquisition as well as other key aspects like environment, rehabilitations and resettlement. In the meeting Director Technical (Operations) of SECL SK Pal, and Director Technical (Project and Planning) SN Kapri along with higher officials from the state government were present. Coal Secretary Amrit Lal Meena reached SECL Headquarters in the next phase of his stay along with CMD Dr Prem Sagar Mishra where he was given the guard of honor.

He held a meeting with General Manager of South East Central Railway (SECR) Alok Kumar and Dr Prem Sagar Mishra in SECL Administrative Building. In the meeting, issues related to SECL's coal dispatch, availability of Railway rakes and rail projects of SECL were discussed along with Gharghoda, Korichpar, Dharamjaygarh, Chaal and Baraud sidings, BilaspurUrga National Highway and Dharamjaygarh to Urga coal project. Senior authorities including SECL Director (Finance) GK Srinivasan, Director (Personnel) Debasish Acharyya, Secretary to SECR General Manager Himanshu Jain, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Praveen Pandey, Principal Chief Commercial Manager N Sreekumar, Senior Divisional Operating Manager Dr PK Tripathi, Chief Freight Traffic Manager S Abdul Rehman besides others were present in the meeting.