Coal India?s flagship subsidiary Northern Coalfields (NCL) has set up a centre named Science and Applied Research Alliance and Support (SARAS) to promote innovation, Research & Development (R&D) and skill development along with improving the company?s operational efficiency and utilise resources at optimum level. Prabhat Kumar Sinha, Chairman and Managing Director, NCL announced this pioneering move in Indian coal sector at a National Seminar on Innovation Driving Productivity with Special Focus on Coal, Power, Steel and MSME Sectors organised by World Confederation of Productivity Science in New Delhi.

?SARAS will help and enable the company in integration of innovation and research for enhancing coal production, productivity, and safety in mines. The company has set up a dedicated R&D Centre in collaboration with IIT (BHU) and has already commenced six varied domain projects worth Rs 60 million to facilitate this move,? Sinha said. Besides, the SARAS would also help establish centres of excellence to ensure technical support to R&D along with thrust on quality skill development and employment to local youths in and around the company?s operational area. Continuous improvement of the existing technical infrastructure of the company for operational efficiency and integrating all initiatives with common tech platforms for optimum utilisation of resources are also the objectives of setting up this centre.

NCL accounts for 15 per cent of India?s coal production and 10 per cent of thermal power generation of the country is met by the coal produced by the company. It produces more than 100 million tonnes of coal every year. It has planned to produce 107 million tonnes of coal in the current fiscal.