Record profit by Central Coal

The Jharkhand-based Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) maintained its 5-year profit run in financial year 2006-07ending March, 2007 with record profit of little over Rs 1,164 crore.

Net worth rose to Rs 1641 crore against the paid up capital of Rs 940crore.

CCL chairman and managing director R P Ritolia said, "During last few years performance of CCL has improved beyond imagination of many mining and financial pundits. A question often asked is what has brought this transformation that a company which was written off a few years ago earlier has not only turned-around but it has left behind many well established coal companies in terms of growth in production and profitability. The answer is not very straight forward since there has been neither any new capacity addition nor new projects or mines have started in last few years."

Production has jumped from 37 million tons in 2004-05 to 40.5mn.t. in 2005-06 to 41.35 mn.t. during2006-07.

This combined with higher coal prices helped raise profit.