Coal India today said it might invest up to Rs 40,000 crore in the 12th Plan Period ending 2017 towards mines' development to augment production.
"We will spend anything between Rs 35,000-40,000 crore in the 12th Plan Period for development of new projects, buying machinery and building washeries, among others," CIL Chairman N C Jha told PTI.
Jha said that against the company's investment target of Rs 35,000 crore during the 11th Plan Period, CIL might end the five-year period with an actual investment of less than Rs 25,000 crore.
"There were lot of bottelnecks because of which we could not move ahead with our entire investment proposals in the 11th Plan Period," he said, adding that during the 12th Plan, the production target is more which warrants more investment.
Jha said CIL has set a production target of 556 million tonne by FY17 against the country's projected demand of 965 million tonne in the terminal year of the 12th Plan Period.
"Overall, country's coal production, including by captive miners, is likely to be 700 million tonne by FY17. So, we will have to import the remaining to meet demand," he said.
The CIL chief said that overseas coal assets acquisition programme of the company was not moving ahead as was expected and hence, the focus of the company in the next Plan Period would be on developing mines within the country.
CIL had earlier announced that it plans to put up 20 new washeries with a combined capacity of 111.1 MT. It has 17 such washeries now.
Meanwhile, Jha said that the 452 million tonne production target of the company for current fiscal would be met despite lower production till September, compared to the same period last year, because of excessive rains.
"I hope things will be better after October and there will be no shortfall," he said.
