CIL revises coal production target for 11th Plan

Coal India Ltd (CIL) has said it has lowered its production target to 486 million tonnes from 520 million tonnes for the Eleventh Five Year Plan period (2007-12) in a mid-term review.

“We have revised the production target to 486 million tonnes against 520 million tonnes projected earlier,” CIL Chairman and MD Partha S Bhattacharyya said.

He said that CIL is facing a production gap of 54 million tonnes and hopes to arrange 20 million tonnes from other existing operating mines, thus, leaving a shortfall of 34 million tonnes.

Bhattacharyya cited non-environmental clearance as the cause for revising the targets.

“Some 17 projects had been stalled which were supposed to produce 101 million tonnes at the terminal year of the 11th Plan period, that is, 2012,” he said.

Speaking about the current year’s production target of 435 million tonnes, Bhattacharyya said the difficulty of evacuation of coal from three subsidiaries was making the fulfilment of the target difficult.