Coal India allotted 11 new mines in Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar: Piyush Goyal

The ministry of coal would allot 11 coal mines to state-owned Coal India Limited, which will add 225 million tonnes to the annual production capacity of the company by 2022.

CIL has set a target to produce 1 billion tonne coal by March 2020. In the last fiscal, Coal India’s production stood at 554 million tonnes. For this fiscal, the target is to touch 600 million tonnes of coal production.

“The government has decided to allot 11 coal mines to Coal India," Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said, “Of the 11 mines, five are deallocated blocks and six are fresh mines,” he said.

Coal India has requested the government to allot the additional coal mines to make all its subsidiaries 100 MT capacity units. Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL), Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) and Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) do not have adequate reserves of the dry fuel at present. Of the 11 mines, it has been decided to allot three to ECL and four each to BCCL and WCL.

"The allotment of these coal mines to CIL will make its arms 100 million tonnes plus coal producing subsidiaries," Goyal said.

These mines are located in Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. Coal ministry officials said with these mines, there would be the direct employment of 18,000 and indirect employment of 90,000.