Coal India powers productivity spurt, but can it sustain the pace?

The furious pace of production has helped prevent the blackouts of last year but there are questions over whether the state-owned miner can sustain the pace

The cracking pace at which Coal India Ltd (CIL) has increased production has made the coal and power ministry mandarins exchange friendly notes this Diwali. This is a far cry from the tense exchanges in September and October last year because of the acute coal shortage at power plants when Power Minister R K Singh described the coal stock position as “touch and go…for the next six months”. Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba had to intervene and set up a committee to ensure the producer ministry and the consumer ministry sank their differences and cooperated.

Yet, that crisis could well have