CURRENT AFFAIRS: NTPC Chairman and Managing Director T. Sankaralingam and SCCL Chairman and Managing Director R. H. Khwaja exchanging MoUs in the presence of Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy and Power Minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir in the city o n Wednesday. -- PHOTO: K. Ramesh Babu

HYDERABAD: Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) and the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) signed an agreement to form a joint venture company with an investment of over Rs. 6,000 crores to tap new coal mines within the country and overseas and to set up coal-based power plants.

It was signed by R. H. Khwaja and T. Sankaralingam, CMDs respectively of the SCCL and NTPC, on Wednesday in the presence of Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy.

To start with, an annual coal production target of 50 million tonnes has been fixed for the joint venture company which will leverage the professional strengths of the two public sector giants.

For this, six virgin coal blocs have already been identified in Jarkhand, Orissa, Chhatisgarh and Madhya Pradesh for exploitation while Indonesia and Australia are targeted overseas.

The Chief Minister said a synergy between SCCL and NTPC was the need of the hour as there was huge demand-supply gap in coal and energy.

Fielding questions from reporters, Mr. Khwaja and Mr. Shankaralingam described the agreement as a milestone achievement.

This was in the light of the plan to double the country's installed capacity for power generation to 2.12 lakh MW by 2012 by when the coal shortage was likely to reach 100 million tonnes annually from 30 million tonnes now.

Accounting for 7 per cent of the country's coal reserves, the SCCL meets 9 per cent of the coal needs supporting several thermal stations in the South.

It plans to increase its production to 45 million tonnes annually by 12th plan-end from 36.13 million tonnes of 2005-06.

The NTPC wants to add 50,000 MW by 2017 to its present capacity.

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