CIL has blamed its failure to keep to production targets in Q1 this fiscal on rains and delays in securing green clearances, but the Coal Ministry is in no mood for excuses and has called a meeting this week on the issue, where it is likely to berate the Navratna PSU's top brass.
"Coal India (CIL) will be pulled up for missing its output target in the production target review meeting to be held this week," an official in the Coal Ministry said.
The meeting, to be chaired by Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, will be attended by officials of the Coal Ministry, CIL Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) NC Jha and the CMDs of all the subsidiaries of CIL, the official said.
CIL had blamed early rains and inclement weather in the eastern region for playing spoilsport in achieving its 98.7 million tonne (MT) coal production target for the first quarter.
In addition, a plethora of problems like delays in the grant of green clearances for its projects hurt production by the state-run firm, which missed the April-June target by 2.4 MT.
"Given the production trend in April and May, we were quite hopeful of meeting the 98.7 MT target for the first quarter. However, early and heavy rains hit most of our coalfields in the eastern belt, making production as well as transportation tough," Jha had said.
With more than double the average rainfall recorded at Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL), Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) and Central Coalfields Ltd's (CCL) operating regions in June this year, Jha had said that the company could achieve only 96.3 MT of coal production in Q1.
Out of the eight subsidiaries of CIL, five are situated in the eastern region, including Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL).
The company had, however, exuded confidence that it would achieve the overall production target of 452 MT for the current fiscal.
With more than 150 mining proposals of the company facing delays in environmental clearance, the world's largest coal miner had missed last fiscal's target by recording an output of 431.325 MT, as against the revised limit of 440.20 MT.
CIL had blamed the slippage on delays in the grant of clearance to its projects.
The Coal Ministry, too, has repeatedly expressed concerns over such delays, saying the green delays could result in a production loss of about 190 MT by March, 2012.