It is a fact that some of the opencast projects (OCP) of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, are not being utilised up to their full capacity despite having good potential for coal production, the Lok Sabha was informed.

Union minister Piyush Goyal said that the projects namely, Ananta OCP, Kanhia OCP, Hingula OCP and Balram OCP have not been able to achieve the rated production capacity due to delays in obtaining forest clearance, environmental clearance, land acquisition and resettlement and rehabilitation issues.

He said that MCL is regularly pursuing the issues of Environmental Clearance (EC)/Forestry Clearance (FC) with the authorities of the state government of Odisha and also at ministry of environment and forests through coal ministry for expediting pending clearances to increase coal production.

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Also, the coal ministry is addressing the issue through regular monitoring of projects through Coal Projects Monitoring Portal with Ministry of Environmental & Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and also meetings with State authorities.

The minister said that the issues of resettlement, regular stoppage of mine/projects by the villagers and related other law and order problems are being taken up with state authorities by MCL.

He said that to increase the coal production and dispatch from Basundhara Coalfield, a new railway line (Jharsuguda-Barpali-Sardega) is under construction which is envisaged to be completed by June, 2017.

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