Coal India arm SECL takes slew of measures to deal with coronavirus

South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), the flagship entity of Coal India Limited (CIL), has taken a slew of measures to deal with the outbreak of Covid-19.

“SECL being the responsible corporate citizen acted swiftly on the advice of Korba district administration and kept its employees on 14-day home quarantine as preventive measure,” the company spokesperson said. The largest coal producing company had quarantined its 83 employees after five of it attended a prayer meeting.

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For the prevention of coronavirus, SECL is sanitizing not only its offices, but also the surrounding areas. SECL has so far distributed 64536 masks to the people besides sanitizers, food and essential commodities to the needy.

While SECL is making all possible efforts to eradicate the disease at its level, it is also collaborating with the district administration to deal with the situation. The company has given a total financial assistance of Rs 1.75 crore to Korba, Bilaspur, Surajpur, Balrampur, Anuppur, Shahdol and Umaria district administration, the spokesperson said.

An additional assistance of Rs 25 lakh had been provided by the company for construction of Quarantine Center in Bilaspur. It is managing a centre in Gevra project area where 50 people have been quarantined. SECL has provided 104 quarantine beds, 88 Isolation and 12 ICU beds at Shahdol, Anuppur, Koriya Umaria, Surajpur and Korba.

Coronavirus scare at Coal India's top entity; 50 employees quarantined

About 50 employees of the South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) in Chhattisgarh’s Korba district have been quarantined after participating in a religious event on Friday.

The employees had gathered to perform a religious event on Friday. They came under the scanner as one of the persons present in the event was tested positive for coronavirus. The person had been admitted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Raipur.

According to Korba district administration, all the persons belonging to a minority community had defied the health guidelines and also curfew-like lockdown imposed by the Chhattisgarh government. Of the gathering, about 50 were working with a coal mining project of SECL.

Following the development, the SECL management had issued order asking the employees not to report on duty and stay in the 28-day home quarantine from Monday. The employees were part of mining operation in the underground mine of the SECL.

SECL has a major coal mining operation in Korba district. The company is the largest coal producing entity of the Coal India Limited (CIL). It retained the top spot by contributing 25 percent to the total coal production of CIL. As against the CIL’s output of 602.14 MT in the financial year 2019-20, SECL had produced 150.545 MT.

SECL retains top spot among CIL entities, produces 150.5 MT coal in FY20

South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) had produced 150.545 million tonnes (MT) of coal in the financial year 2019-20 (FY20), retaining the top spot among Coal India Limited (CIL) entities.

Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur-headquartered company had contributed 25 per cent to the total coal production of CIL. CIL produced 602.14 MT of coal in FY20.

The second largest coal producing subsidiary of CIL was over 10 MT behind SECL and the third was over 42 MT short of SECL’s output. The production rally continued throughout the year in SECL and it crossed 150 MT coal production mark for the second time.

SECL has crossed the benchmark of 150 MT coal production consecutively during last two financial years. No other subsidiary of CIL had been able to achieve this benchmark.

Applauding the efforts of SECL, CMD A P Panda said the dedication of miners given the crises prevailing in the country was overtly evident in the annual figures of coal production. The country is under lockdown and in these tough times also, SECL miners had been relentlessly working to meet coal requirements of the nation.

Several coal production records were created and surpassed especially during the lockdown period. The most remarkable being the largest single day coal production on March 27 when company produced 1 MT coal. Towards the end of financial year, the production spree continued and the firm crossed 900,000 Tonnes of single day coal production on 26th and 31st March.