The Board of Directors of Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL), which met here on Monday, has approved the construction of new quarters for the company employees at a cost of ₹210 crore, as promised by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao in the past.
Chairman and Managing Director of the company N. Sridhar announced the decision at the 554th meeting of the Board of Directors. He stated that the Chief Minister had made the promise of new quarters during a meeting in Srirampur area.
The first phase construction of quarters had already been taken up in Sattupalli area and now the decision had been taken to construct 994 MD type spacious quarters in Bhupalapalli area with the Board’s approval.
Another major decision at the Monday’s board meeting was to set up a new full-fledged environment department with experts to implement environment protection more efficiently, to pursue environment related permissions, clearances and other aspects in future by replacing the existing department. The board has also appreciated the company’s plans of establishing 300 megawatt capacity solar power plants.
The board was informed that tenders have been called for for the first and second phases and 10 MW plants have already been commissioned on the company’s thermal power plant premises at Pegadapalli in Mancherial district.
Work on launching the solar plants at Yellandu and Manuguru would also be taken up soon and the tenders would be finalised for the third phase as well soon.
Further, the board has approved extraction of 74 lakh cubic metres of coal at Koyagudem OC2 mine in Yellandu area, removing of 1,416 lakh cubic metres overburden in the coming six years from Manuguru –PKOC. Purchase of machinery worth ₹106 crore for use in opencast mines and ₹41 crore worth blasting material for use in underground mines has also been approved by the board.
A budget of ₹45 crore has been approved for Polytechnic, Women, Junior, Degree and Post Graduate Colleges and 9 High Schools run by the Singareni Educational Society for 2020-21.
The board has also accorded farewell to three board members – Special Chief Secretary (Energy) Ajay Misra, Directors S. Shankar (E&M) and B. Bhaskar Rao (P&P), who were present and retiring from service on attaining the age of superannuation at the month-end.
