CIL urges higher production from allotted blocks

In face of short supply against the rising demand for coal in the country, state-owned Coal India (CIL) today said production from blocks allotted to private miners should be stepped up.

"There are 200 coal blocks allotted to private miners, but the production levels are not high. This sector should be developed," CIL Chairman Partha Bhattacharyya said at the CII-organised mining seminar here today.

He said that the demand for coal was rising at a rate of 9-10 per cent per annum, whereas coal production was increasing at a rate of 7 per cent each year.

Given such a scenario, he said, the situation was not likely to change for quite a few years ahead.

CIL, which accounts for about 85 per cent of the domestic coal production, produced 431.5 million tonnes of coal last fiscal. The chairman has earlier said the company may miss the current fiscal's target of 460.5 million tonnes.

Bhattacharyya said India would also be the largest importer of coal in the coming years.

Giving statistics, he said that coal imports had been steadily on the rise and would touch 80 million tonnes this fiscal.

The CIL chief said that the government rules and regulations were not in sync with the ground realities. These, he said, were coming in the way of enhancing coal production.

Bhattacharyya said most of the block miners were carrying out contract mining.

"They are relying too much on contract mining and not systematic mining, which is not sustainable," he said.

He alleged the block miners were using equipment and technology which were not the best, as the focus was on getting the job done in the cheapest possible way. This, according to him, had to change.

The other issue was that the quality of coal would have to improve.

For this, Bhattacharyya said use of washed coal would have to be increased, for which CIL was setting up in-built washeries in projects with production above 2.5 million tonnes.

Regarding imports by CIL, he said that a tender was likely to be floated by this month based on the offtake agreement with other companies.

CIL was likely to import 6 million tonnes.