CIL exceeds target 1st time in 7 months in Oct; output 40.2 MT

Coal India Ltd, the world's largest producer of the fuel, produced 40.20 million tonnes of coal in October, beating its target for the first time in seven months.

Coal India, which has been under intense scrutiny for missing output targets during the last few years, had set the target of 39.74 million tonnes for October. It, however, fell short of its production target of 259.85 million tonnes for April-October by 8.9 million tonnes, the company said in a filing to stock exchanges.

No reason was given by Coal India Ltd (CIL) for missing the target for April-October period. Coal India has a target of supplying 408 million tonnes of coal to power firms this fiscal. The company's offtake in October stood at 39.11 million tonnes, against the target of 40.94 million tonnes. Coal India had missed its output target for the fifth consecutive month in September, producing 34.88 million tonnes of coal against the targeted 36.17 million tonnes (MT). In August, the output was 34.54 MT against the target of 35.13 MT.

In July, it achieved a production of 33.01 MT (35.86) and in June it was 34.54 MT (36.84). In May, the output was 36.27 MT against 38.46 MT target. Production was 37.51 MT against 37.61 MT in April. Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal had earlier asked Coal India to ramp up production from its existing mines. CIL, which accounts for 80 per cent of domestic coal production, missed its output target of 482 million tonnes for 2013-14, producing 462 million tonnes during the period.

Production had fallen short of target because of various reasons, including lack of environment clearance to coal mining projects. In 2012-13, the company had produced 452.5 million tonnes of coal, falling short of the 464 MT target.