Coal India's (CIL) plans to increase production may get a boost as the ministerial panel in its meeting on March 1 is likely to take up the environmental issues that impact its various projects to raise output.
"The Group of Ministers [GoM] meeting will take place on March 1. It will deliberate on environment issues that are hampering production of coal," an government official said.
This will be the sixth meeting of the ministerial panel, which was constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in February last year, to iron out issues impeding production of coal.
The proposed meeting of the panel, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, assumes importance, particularly in the backdrop of the Prime Minister Office's directive to CIL for meeting the supply commitments to the power sector.
Due to pending environmental clearances for its over 100 projects at various levels, it is becoming increasingly difficult for CIL, which accounts for 80% of domestic coal production, to meet the growing demand in the country.
The widening demand-supply deficit of coal is pegged at 137 million tonne this fiscal. It will go up further if Coal India does not get immediate reprieve on the environmental front.
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Far from increasing production, CIL has to in fact to bring its output target for this year to 440 million tonne from 452 million tonne fixed in the beginning of the fiscal. Last fiscal, it had produced 431 million tonne coal.
Many in CIL as well as in the ministry are of the view that fast-tracking of clearances for coal projects is the only answer for augmenting production and thus bridging the demand-supply gap.
Earlier this month, the Centre had asked all the states to send proposals without delay for clearances of coal blocks that were either rejected by Environment Ministry due to their falling into no mining zone or have been pending for long.