Coal India to invest Rs 18,000cr to up production

Coal India (CIL) will invest Rs 18,000 crore to raise production by 160 million tonne (MT) to 521.5 MT within the 11th plan period ending 2011-12.

"The entire investment will be made through internal accruals," P S Bhattacharya, chairman, CIL said.

The coal major had expanded production by 81 MT in the 10th plan period ending in 2006-07 to 360.94 MT. The increase in production was achieved in the backdrop of a coal demand of 470 MT.

Within the 10th five year plan period, 97 coal mining projects were approved by the Central government. Of these, 81 were sanctioned.

"The sanctioned projects will provide CIL with an incremental production of 112 million tonne by 2011-12," Bhattacharya said.

CIL hopes to get another 70-75 MT from projects that would be sanctioned within the 11 five year period.

According to the integrated energy policy projections, the coal demand is expected to rise to 731 MT while the coal production is expected in the region of 680 MT, including captive production of 118 MT, within the 11th plan period. Captive production currently stands at 18 MT.

However, the major obstacles for the company to increase coal production are land acquisition problems and clearance from the environment and forestry ministry.

"CIL has around 1,50,000 hectares in its possession and needs to acquire 41,000 hectares for increasing production. Of this around 13,000 hectares is forest land.We are waiting for the national rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R)policy before going ahead with the acquisition," Bhattacharya said.