Coal India increases capex by 30% for current fiscal year to Rs 13,000 cr

Move in line with Centre's directive to increase expenditure for economic revival

Country’s national miner Coal India Limited (CIL) has decided to scale up its capital expenditure by an additional Rs 3,000 crore.

This is the first time in its history that the mining giant has revised its capex upwards. The capex for this fiscal would stand at Rs 13,000 crore.

The company said capex revision is in line with the Centre’s directive to public sector utilities (PSUs) to increase their capital expenditure in order to “stimulate economic activity.”

CIL’s revised capex during the current financial year would make it one of the top spenders among the Indian PSUs, said a statement by the company.

Under the new capex plan of additional Rs 3,000 crore, South Eastern Coalfields Limited, the largest coal producing subsidiary of CIL accounts for Rs 800 crore followed by CIL headquarters with Rs 585 crore and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited with Rs 550 crore. Central Coalfields Limited takes up Rs 460 crore.

“CIL has identified land acquisition, procurement of heavy earth moving machinery, upgrade of rail evacuation infrastructure and mine development for capex,” said a company executive.

He further said CIL has utilised 78 per cent of its total original capex budget during April-December 2020.  “CIL was directed by the ministry to achieve Rs 7,500 crore capex utilisation by the end of December 2020 against which the actual capex utilisation was Rs. 7,801 which is Rs. 301 crores more” said a senior executive of the company.

The company in a statement said its capex for Q3 ending December 2020, at Rs 2,778 crore, posted a 90 per cent growth against Rs 1,463 crores of the same quarter last year. The increased spend during the third quarter was Rs 1,315 crore.

During Q2 CIL logged a 312 per cent capex growth and a growth of 86.5 per cent  in Q1.

“Maintaining its growth streak in capital expenditure since the beginning of the fiscal, CIL has posted a robust 166 per cent growth at Rs 7,801 crore during the first nine months of the fiscal ending December 2020. Compared to Rs 2,930 crore capex that the company clocked during the same period last financial year, the actual spend was up by Rs 4,871 crore,” said a statement by the company.