Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd (NLC) has installed two state-of-the-art bucketwheel excavators with an operating capacity of up to 6,800 cubic metres per hour for its Mines-II Project.

The new bucketwheel excavators were inaugurated on Thursday 5 February in the Mine-II site by Shri B. Surender Mohan, chairman cum managing director of NLC, in the presence of other NLC directors, officials and employees.

The two bucketwheel excavators of 1,400-litre capacity were erected and supplied by TAKRAF INDIA LTD., Chennai, in collaboration with M/s TAKRAF GmbH, Germany.

These giant crawler mounted excavators, each of them weighing close to 2,600 tonnes, will be used in the NLC Mines-II area for removing the overburden or top soil over the lignite deposit. The maximum cutting height of the machine is 30 metres.

This is the first time in the NLC history that two excavators of such large size were put to service at the same time. It is also to the credit of the project officials from NLC and their contractors with their workforce that they were able to complete the project five months ahead of the tight schedule.

TAKRAF India executed the project on a turnkey basis utilizing the trusted technology of its principals TAKRAF GmbH from Germany. The continuous mining technologies for open pit mines developed by Germans have been successfully used by NLC for several decades now, besides providing the advantage of low cost of lignite mining.