Kolkata, Apr 11 (PTI) Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) on Tuesday announced the successful commissioning of its first highwall mining project at Nimcha Colliery in West Bengal.

The project is expected to increase ECL's production by 0.5 million tonnes per year, the Coal India subsidiary said.

Also Read | India Will Become Third Largest Economy in the World, Says Union Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey.

Highwall mining is a method to extract additional coal after the economic strip limit has been reached in surface mining.

This technology provides an economical way to extract coal reserves locked up in the highwall, the company said.

Also Read | EV Sale: Electric Two-Wheeler Sales in India Rise Over Two-and-Half Fold to 8,46,976 Units in 2022-23.

It aims to produce 51 million tonnes of coal in the 2023-24 fiscal, a sharp increase from 35 million tonnes in the previous financial year.

To support this increased production, ECL has allocated a capital expenditure of Rs 1,250 crore for the current fiscal as against Rs 1,104 crore in 2022-23.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)