CIL join hands with RCF, GAIL for gasification project

NAGPUR: Navaratna public sector company Coal India Ltd (CIL) has joined hands with Gas Authority of India and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers to set up a coal gasification project at Talchar in Orissa.

"The project is being set up at Talchar at a defunct RCF plant and Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd would be supplying five MN tonnes of coal for the project," Coal India Chairman Partha S Bhattacharya told a news conference here yesterday.

"CIL had earlier contemplated underground coal gasification but was seriously concerned over water contamination unlike Russia, where coal mines are located in remote areas, whereas our mines are situated in human inhabitations," he said.

Amonium Nitrate would be extracted which will be used for producing Urea by the RCF, he said.

Bhattacharya said that the coal sector was growing at seven per cent and the setting up of new coal washeries would be completed with two years.

On the IPO, he said CIL was considering giving shares to Project Affected Persons (PAPs), who have not availed other rehabilitation benefits like employment.

"They will be offered at face value," he said adding that there was proposal of setting up a trust for modalities and facilitating.