L&T Construction & Mining Machinery, part of the engineering giant Larsen & Toubro, has set up a new Service Centre in Singrauli, the heartland of India’s coal industry. The new facility was recently inaugurated by Arvind K Garg, Executive Vice President & Head, Construction & Mining Machinery Business, L&T, in the presence of a galaxy of top customers from public sector and private companies. Gunadhar Pandey, Director (Technical), Northern Coalfields; PSRK Sastry, Director (Finance), Northern Coalfields; Russell Conley, Chief Project Director-Sasan, Reliance Power; Masaaki Kamizono, Managing Director, Komatsu India; Jimmy Renstrom, CFO, Scania Commercial Vehicles India and V Prabhakar Reddy, Member of Parliament, participated in the event. Addressing the gathering, Arvind K Garg, Executive Vice President & Head, Construction & Mining Machinery Business, L&T, said that the new Service Centre with state-of-the-art facilities would fulfil a long-felt need for a repair facility in the coal-belt area. He said L&T was committed to providing life-cycle support to the mining equipment deployed in Singrauli area and this move was to reinforce that commitment. “L&T is prepared to deliver top class field support at customer doorsteps and ensure high availability of the high-cost machines at all times”, he added. The L&T Service Centre is located at Audyogik Kendra Vikas Nigam industrial area at Waidhan, Madhya Pardesh, about 30 km from Singrauli and 210 km from Varanasi. It incorporates advanced facilities to take up overhaul and repairs of over 1,000 numbers of strong fleet of L&T, Komatsu, Scania equipment engaged in overburden removal and in mining projects in this area. The fleet includes off-highway dump trucks, crawler dozers, hydraulic excavators, wheel loaders, motor graders and tipper trucks. engines, transmissions, axles, hydraulic assemblies and other aggregates fitted on to these construction and mining equipment will also be taken up for overhaul in the Service Centre. This Service Centre is spread over a total area of 10,080 sq m. The workshop is well laid out, with epoxy flooring and equipped with overhead cranes, dust-free cooling system, special fixtures and tools for carrying out repairs of major machines and components. The facility is environment-friendly with an ergonomically designed workshop, rainwater harvesting, sewage and effluent treatment plant and fire-protection system. With an increasing machine population in the coal-belt area of Singrauli, L&T felt it prudent to open Service Centre to take up overhaul and repairs of mining equipment as well as aggregates. The location of the Service Centre in proximity to the mining belt would reduce the lead time for repairability and help in stepping up the equipment availability, which is so crucial in the production cycle of the mines.  Northern Coalfields, Reliance Power, VPR Infrastructure and BGR Mining Co are some of the major customers in the area. The setting up of this Service Centre in Singrauli augurs well with the consolidation of mining activities in North India and the increased mining activity through deployment of large-sized shovels and dumpers. Value-added services by L&T include management of customer assets in remote projects through attractive full maintenance contracts and site support agreements, which have resulted in substantial savings for customers through optimum equipment uptime and utilisation at minimum maintenance costs.