As referenced by the Embassy of Belarus in India, the Minister of Industry of the Republic of Belarus (and former General Director of BELAZ) Piotr Parkhomchik and the current General Manager of BELAZ Sergei Nikiforovich recently visited Kolkata, where the management of OJSC BELAZ and the Indian state-owned company Coal India signed a contract for the supply of 96 Belarussian 240 t 7531 mining trucks. The order was put in back in August 2020 but has now been formalised.

This is a huge overseas deal for BELAZ valued at some $390 million and the contract includes the cost of the dumpers and spares for eight years, including a one-year warranty period. The primary consignment of six trucks will be shipped first beginning Q2 2021. After their testing a decision will be made on the delivery time for the main consignment of the remaining 90 dump trucks which are set to be delivered at a rate of four per month.

The trucks are bound for CIL’s South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) division. SECL’s total of 240 t trucks will now be 162, with 66 previously in operation. Some 84 of the 96 dumpers will be put into operation at Gevra and the remaining 12 in Kusmunda project in Chhattisgarh. Both are mega opencast projects of SECL. At Gevra alone there will be 116 240 t trucks along with the 32 already there while Kusmunda’s total will go up from 20 to 32.

This deal follows a 2019 contract to supply 77 75137 130 t trucks for the Gevra mining complex. More than half of these have been assembled and are already in operation.