State-owned Coal India (CIL) today said it is gearing up to invest about Rs 6,000 crore towards capital expenditure in the next fiscal and an equal amount on augmenting other infrastructure, including rail connectivity.
The announcement comes at a time when the company has a target to achieve an output of one billion tonnes by 2019-20.
"CIL and its subsidiaries are proposing to invest around Rs 6,000 crore in 2015-16 towards capital expenditure," Coal India said in a filing to BSE.
Further, an amount of around Rs 6,000 crore has been earmarked by CIL for railway and other infrastructure development for 2015-16, the company said.
The capex for entire infrastructure in Coal India for 2015-16 is close to Rs 12,000 crore, Coal India CMD Coal India CMD S Bhattacharaya told reporters here.
He said that annually Rs 6,000 crore would be spent on mining and the remaining Rs 6,000 on rail infrastructure and other related work.
CIL also unveiled its roadmap, of strategies to be adopted, to attain the one billion tone coal production by 2019-20.
With the projected coal demand of the country hovering around 1,200 million tonnes (MTs) by 2019-20, at an envisaged growth rate of 7 per cent, CIL is expected to chip in one billion tonnes, of which, 908 million tonnes is the expected contribution from the identified projects, he said.
"The process of identification of projects to share the balance quantity, to top up the 1 billion tonne mark, is also underway," Bhattacharaya said.
The two CIL subsidiaries---Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd and South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) are expected to play a pivotal role in its quest of attaining the one BT production with 250 million tonnes and 240 million tonnes respectively, he said.
In the biggest ever disinvestment exercise, the government in January sold 10 per cent stake in Coal India for about Rs 22,600 crore.
