At a time when India needs more coal to meet growing demand from its power sector, Coal India Limited (CIL), the public sector coal behemoth, has revised its annual output target downward from initial 460 million tonne to 440 million tonne for the current fiscal.
“This is mainly because of drastic fall in production by Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), the Orissa based coal company under CIL and also less production by other CIL subsidiaries for various reasons”, said the CIL chairman N C Jha while talking to media persons at Talcher during his visit there.
“We were dependent on MCL, the second biggest subsidiary of CIL, but the company is 17 million tonne behind the target as on date. So it is not possible to reach at the overall target under the situation”, he said. He apprehended that MCL, which crossed 100 million tonne mark last year, may not achieve the last year’s output.
Stating that environmental hurdles and frequent bandhs at the Talcher mines are the two main factors for the drastic fall in coal production, he said that both MCL and CIL are ready to solve all the basic problems of the people.
In the wake of enhanced allocation under corporate social responsibility (CSR), all the CIL subsidiaries including MCL have been directed to create extra fund for community development, he added.
Jha stressed on timely forest clearance for scaling up capacity of CIL's mines across the country.
The chairman also said that there is no dearth of coal in CIL as it is having a stock of 58 million tonnes at its pitheads.
The coal stock could not be liquidated due to constraints of railway wagons and to tide over the crisis, CIL has indicated to the Railways that it is prepared to finance the wagons for its captive use, he stated. Jha ruled out the possibility of a new coal company at Talcher on administrative grounds.
He indicated that the government may consider setting up a new coal company if the coal output from Talcher Coalfields goes up. R Mohan Das, director (personnel) of CIL, A N Sahay, chairman and managing director of MCL) and other directors of MCL were present on the occasion.
