It is reported that Coal India Limited’s Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Ltd a will invest over INR 100 crore for acquiring advanced drilling equipment in the next two years. With this the mini ratna aims to increase its annual exploration capacity to 1 million meters by 2010 from the present 0.2 million metres.

Mr AK Singh CMD of CMPDI said that "We have lined up an investment of INR 108 crore for acquiring 18 new generation hydrostatic rigs from Sweden to replace old manual rigs. We have already received two such advanced machines.”

Mr Singh said that to meet the manpower requirement for enhanced drilling capacity CMPDIL is training 100 more geologist and 200 drilling staff. He added that "CIL has transferred its 100 geologists and 200 drilling persons to CMPDIL and we are training them to meet the extended drilling capacity.”

Mr PS Bhattacharyya chairman of CIL told PTI that "Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Ltd is planning a major revamp of its exploration activity...We plan to enhance annual drilling capacity to one million meters per annum.”

The company does exploration up to 300 metres and is planning to take it up to 600 meters.

The present manpower strength of the subsidiary, which is also the centre's nodal research and development wing for the coal sector is 3,173.

The coal ministry has got customs duty on import of such equipment reduced to 3% from 7% to 10% earlier.

The investments are in line with the Coal India Ltd's strategy to prove about 161 billion tonnes of coal reserves out of the estimated reserves of 267 billion tonnes in the country. Coal India targets to mine about 435 million tonnes of coal in the current fiscal.

(Sourced from Economic Times)