TEDxKanke, has been organizing a Webinar Series titled ‘The Rise of a New World’ from May 2. The speaker for the event on June 20 was Pramod Agarwal, CMD Coal India Limited (CIL) while the talk was titled New Coal Mining Strategy post Covid-19. The session was moderated by TEDx Kanke Curator Rajeev Gupta.
The series is slated to have speakers from the fields of technology, innovation, leadership, creativity and art and culture of national and international acclaim. The sessions are being streamed live on the facebook page fb.me/tedxkanke20.
“We are expecting the economy to go down by about 5 percent contrary to the earlier growth rates of 2- 3 percent at the global level. India was looking at some growth, but we should only be expecting a degrowth. ADB reports also suggest that our economy could be down by 4 percent. Our energy demand has reduced by 22 percent in the last three months. Coal demand has reduced by 27 percent and this might go down further before things improve. Challenges we were effacing before COVID like fossil fuel versus renewable energy, price of renewable energy and storage is going down. The target of 50 percent of renewable energy share as committed in the Paris Agreement by India is another challenge,” said Agarwal.
“Coal will remain a primary source of energy till 2040 as the capacity factor in solar energy still remains a big concern like increasing the capital costs for solar installations (4.5 Crore INR for 1 MW). Coal market will become more vibrant with the commercialization of coal as market price selling instead of fixed price selling can increase the profit of the sector. We have an opportunity to substitute imports- 240 Million metric tonne of which 150 Million metric tonne can be avoided and this will give us an opportunity to ramp up our production substantially. If the government policies with regards to labor, markets and environmental clearances are streamlined then it gives us a great opportunity to boost our production,” he added.
“Technology adoption is slow which needs to be ramped up. In three to four years, if we employ more and more surface miners then quality can be enhanced. Evacuation infrastructure should also become mechanized by 75 percent. Investments are being made to help us evacuate 500 million tonne of mechanical coal evacuation. There is also a need to invest in areas for new technology for better profitability, chemical conversions and gasification among other things,” said the CMD.
“Business model transformation of adopting MDOs, underground, open cast and abandoned mines model in which the mines are given to private agencies on a long term basis is required. The changes are challenging but we are only looking at process transformation for easier adoption. We need to integrate existing technology with operations and decision making which is a difficult task. Imparting training to our workforce for using the technology effectively will also be a priority,” said Agarwal.
“There is no organised way of keeping the data. The ERP is a very effective tool in increasing the efficiency and there are plans to put the system in place by September 2020. This will also improve our interface with the customers as presently every contract is kept in isolation which does not serve well for the customers. ERP needs to be integrated for preventive maintenance in a much more effective manner,” added Agarwal.
