By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, April 20, 2015 :

Coal rich Odisha has finally something to smile with the state government on Monday signing a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) with union ministries of railways and coal for floating a first of its kind Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in the country for evacuation of coal from the pitheads.

State transport and commerce minister Ramesh Majhi signed the MoU on behalf of the Odisha government at the Rail Bhavan, New Delhi. Both Union railways minister Suresh Prabhu and coal minister Piyush Goyal were present during the inking of the MoU.

The state government will have 10% equity in the SPV while the Union ministry of coal will have 64% and the Railways ministry hold 26%. The SPV will develop rail infrastructure to facilitate transportation of coal from the state’s coal mines.

The SPV also will have provision for project specific models where private partners can have equity participation.

The SPV will develop rail infrastructure to facilitate transportation of coal from the state’s coal mines.

Besides, it will undertake doubling or trebling of tracks in the coal mines area.

To begin with, doubling of the track on the Sambalpur-Titlagarh section and development of rail track on Sambalpur-Talcher and Titlagarh-Raipur sections will be undertaken. Apart from this there are also plans for development of Talcher coalfields.

Evacuation of coal has assumed significance as Coal India and its subsidiaries paln to increase production.