State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) produced 273.57 million tonnes (MT) of coal in the first seven months of the ongoing fiscal, lower than the target of 307 MT, even as the demand for fossil fuel started picking up.
CIL produced 43.51 MT of dry fuel last month, against the target of 51.88 MT, the PSU said in a filing to BSE.
The offtake of fossil fuel by the coal PSU in April-October period was 292.16 MT, lower than the target of 331.76 MT.
Despite incessant downpour hampering coal production, the government had last month said there were no plans to scale down state-owned CIL's output target for the ongoing fiscal as the demand has started picking up.
Coal Secretary Anil Swarup had said there were no plans to cut down output because the demand has already picked up now.
In October, the demand has started picking up for both coal and power sectors, the secretary had said.
CIL, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production, is eyeing 598 MT production in 2016-17. CIL has a target to produce one billion tonnes of fossil fuel by 2020.
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