Country's biggest coal producer Coal India (CIL) has missed its revised production target as it achieved only 435.84 million tonnes (MT) for 2011-12 against 447 MT, adding to the worries of power producers who are already facing supply crunch.
The public sector unit said there were a number of factors for less production, including heavy rains, regulatory hurdles in project, besides "major deviation from annual action plan (AAP) target has taken place in its subsidiaries -- Eastern Coalfields, Central Coalfields, Mahanadi Coalfields and Northern Coalfields.
The production in 2011-12 is however, higher that the previous fiscal's.
"CIL, the Maharatna coal miner, ended the fiscal 2011-12 with a production of 435.84 MT, more than 4.52 MT compared to previous fiscal, registering a growth of one%.
"Now it is fully geared up to put up a spirited performance in attaining the optimistic target for 2012 which has been fixed for 470 MT," CIL's CMD Zohra Chatterji said.
The world's largest coal miner is battling on several fronts to scale up production. The hurdles included delays in regulatory clearances for new and expansion projects.
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Chatterji, citing an official statement, said that the company has turned around the crippling negative growth of 19 and 16.9% in August and September, 2011, due to unprecedented rains and ended with a positive growth of 1% this fiscal.
The production picked up in February 2012 recording 17% growth over the previous year, while maximum production in a day touched a record 2.03 MT, the statement said.
Coal offtake reached an all time high of 231 rakes in a day, while "satisfaction of the power sector was maintained at 94% recording 2% growth over the previous year," it said, adding, production and offtake in March were the highest ever in a single month since inception.
The government said it is taking various long and short term steps to augment output, including fixing accountability for non-achievement of target and obtaining environment clearances for 10 projects in February and March totalling 19 MT.
The government is trying hard to boost its output mainly to meet the power sector's demands.