KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - India’s Coal Ministry has set a production target of 655-million tonnes for State-run miner Coal India Limited (CIL) for 2019/20.
This compares with production of 607-million tonnes achieved by CIL during 2018/19, which is a shade below the 610-million-tonne target set by the Ministry for the year.
The government has fixed the production target for the current year based on production growth over the past few years and anticipating that CIL will be able to sustain the growth rates of the past year during which it notched up growth of 7.23%, company sources said.
CIL is confident of sustaining higher production growth since it has been able to ramp up the rate from a low of 2.33% during 2016/17 to levels of 7% in subsequent fiscals, the sources adds.
They point out that during March 2019, the miner produced 79.19-million tonnes, the highest ever production in a single month and the goal is to sustain such levels through greater deployment of mechanisation and efficient production planning at all its operationally wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Higher incremental coal extraction will ride on the three key operational subsidiaries Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) and Northern Coalfields Limited.
Significantly, during the past fiscal, NCL was able to produce over 100-million tonnes, joining the ranks of subsidiaries like SECL and MCL.
More importantly, CIL has been able to ramp up dispatch steadily over the past few years, a key indicator of meeting consumer demand more efficiently, company sources say.
During 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19, the miner was able to increase total dispatch of coal from its mines to 543-million tonnes, 581-million tonnes and 608-million tonnes respectively.