New Delhi, June 30 (IANS) State-owned Maharatna company Coal India Limited (CIL) on Tuesday said it plans to invest around Rs 1,900 crore in research and development (R&D) activities by FY30 as it steps up efforts to drive technological innovation and support the evolving energy landscape.

In an exchange filing, the coal mining major stated that it has intensified R&D initiatives with the establishment of the National Centre for Coal and Energy Research (NaCCER) in FY2024-25, marking a key milestone.

The centre follows a hub-and-spoke model and is aimed at accelerating prototype development and technology deployment.

“We intend to shift R&D to a higher orbit to drive the company’s future growth and technological transformation,” a senior CIL official said.

The company said its R&D expenditure increased multifold to Rs 245 crore in FY2024-25 from Rs 61 crore in the previous financial year. CIL has also formulated a comprehensive R&D policy to create a structured innovation framework.

To strengthen industry-academia collaboration, Coal India has established three Centres of Excellence (CoEs) at premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) — IIT Hyderabad, IIT Madras and IIT (ISM) Dhanbad.

In addition, the company has committed Rs 253 crore — to be released in phases — for these centres.

Moreover, 19 R&D projects worth Rs 225 crore are currently being executed by leading scientific institutions under the direct oversight of NaCCER, according to the filing.

Additionally, 13 pilot-scale research and prototype development projects are underway at the CoEs.

The research spans strategic areas such as clean coal technologies, carbon capture, utilisation and storage, coal gasification, recovery of rare earth elements and critical minerals, sustainable materials, circular economy, environmental remediation, wastewater treatment and advanced mining technologies.

Coal India has also entered into international collaborations with Ergo Exergy of Canada for an underground coal gasification project, Ericsson of Sweden for deploying 5G technologies at its Jhanjra underground mine, and Australia’s CSIRO to advance collaborative research, it added.

–IANS

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