The Videocon Group’s move to set up a 3 million tonne per annum steel plant and a 1,200 MW power project over a patch of coal bearing area at Jamuria near Asansol in West Bengal has been opposed by state-owned Coal India Limited.

A highly placed CIL official told Business Standard that “CIL is opposed to any project coming up on a coal bearing area. The site identified for Videocon Group’s steel plant and power project has about 600 million tonnes of coal reserves under the command area of Eastern Coalfields Limited a subsidiary of CIL.

The official added that Videocon cannot use the coal reserves as it has no expertise in coal mining and its project can be realigned or relocated.

The West Bengal government had assured them that no industrial project would be developed on coal-bearing areas.

The official pointed out that “Videocon has not approached us on the matter and we are not in talks with them. CIL cannot agree to any proposal wherein an industrial project comes up on a coal-bearing area.”

Earlier, the first airport city project in the country to be developed on more than 2,000 acres in the Asansol Durgapur region by a special purpose vehicle called Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd had also hit a similar roadblock, as the identified site contained coal reserves. The INR 10,000 crore project had to be subsequently realigned to leave out the coal-bearing areas.

(Sourced from Business Standards)