Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), the flagship company of Coal India Limited (CIL), is facing a formidable challenge of meeting its annual coal output target for the current financial year which has been fixed at 110 million tonnes (mt).
MCL, which was tipped to be the biggest coal producing subsidiary of CIL in 2009-10, has achieved a coal production of 90.94 mt by the end of February this year.
To meet its coal output target, MCL needs to produce around 20 mt in March. This appears to be a tough ask for the coal company considering the fact that MCL produced only 12 mt in February with its average daily output standing at about four lakh tonnes.
With a coal production of 90.94 mt during the April-February period of this fiscal, MCL has posted a growth of 8.34 per cent over an output of 83.84 mt in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
The Ib valley coalfields of MCL in the said period has clocked a coal output of 38.33 mt, marginally short of the target of 38.78 mt.
However, Talcher Coalfields, which accounts for nearly 65 per cent of MCL's overall coal production, fell short of the target by a wide margin due to recurrent strikes, bandhs and obstruction by local people, hampering coal production.
As against its target of 59.7 mt, the Talcher Coalfields has achieved a production of 52.5 mt by the end of February.
"The shortfall in coal production at the Talcher Coalfields is likely to mar MCL's prospects of emerging as the number one subsidiary of CIL, surpassing South Eastern Coalfields (SECL)”, said a company official.
While MCL has been given the coal production target of 110 mt, SECL's target for the current fiscal is 106 mt.
It may be noted that MCL has also fallen short of its coal despatch target by about eight per cent in the April-February period of this fiscal. The company could despatch 88.89 mt of coal compared to the targeted 98,76 mt.
The coal company has however registered a growth of about 25 per cent in over burden removal.
