CIL floats tenders for ₹4,970-cr rail corridor

For the quicker evacuation of coal from open cast mines in Chhattisgarh, Coal India Ltd (CIL) has floated twin tenders for the construction of a 135 km east-west rail corridor at an estimated cost of ₹4,970 crore through an SPV. The railway line will be from Gevra Road to Pendra Road, to be developed by CEWRL. On completion, it will have the capacity to evacuate 65 million tons (MT) of coal from the opencast mines of CIL arm South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL). The development comes against the backdrop of CIL eyeing one billion tons of output by 2023-24. The tenders were floated after an SBI-led consortium of six banks, which are the lenders to this rail corridor, released Lenders Confirmation Notice (LCN) for ₹400 crore as the first disbursement. An engineering plan for CEWRL has been put in place. CIL, in a bid to evacuate increased quantity of coal through rail mode from potentially high yielding opencast mines of its Chhattisgarh-based subsidiary SECL, has formed two Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) for the construction of rail lines.