NLC India Chairman & Managing Director (CMD) M Prasanna Kumar said the company needs to invest 75,000 crore to reach its 2030 goals of building a portfolio of power capacity of 17 gigawatts (GW) and a lignite/coal mining capacity of 84 MTPA.

He expressed assurance that the CPSU will be able to raise money for these initiatives.

"Currently, we have four lignite mines and one coal block under operation. Lignite mines have a capacity of 30.1 million tonnes per annum (MTPA), while coal mine is of 20 MTPA. We are trying to expand our capacity in the Neyveli (Tamil Nadu) area. The land requirement and permissions are in process. We are expecting it to add around 15 MTPA there," he said.

"At present, our lignite/ coal-fired portfolio is 4.64 GW, which we want to expand by another 7.36 GW. The Ghatampur (Kanpur) TPP with a capacity of 1,980 megawatt (MW) will become operational by FY24. Then we are going for one supercritical lignite-based TPP of 1,320 MW in the Neyveli area, which is expected to operate in the next 3-4 years," he added.