Coal India misses annual production target by 44.48 million tonnes

It also missed off-take target for 2016-17 by 55.45 million tonnes

Coal India on Monday said it missed its annual production target by 44.48 million tonnes as it produced 554.13 million tonnes of coal by the end of 2016-17 against a target of 598.61 million tonnes.

According to the provisional data, the miner also missed its off-take target for 2016-17 by 55.45 million tonnes.

Against a target of 598.61 million tonnes, its off-take for the last financial year (FY) was at 543.16 million tonnes — up 1.6 per cent over the off-take for 2015-16.

The miner achieved 93 per cent of its annual production target for the last FY, achieving a 2.9 per cent growth over its production in 2015-16.

"The production was impacted due to rehabilitation and resettlement issues along lower dispatch which have been noticed in the entire year," a Coal India official said.

At the beginning of the 2016-17, Coal India's Chairman Sutirtha Bhattacharya had said that going forward the miner needed to step up to a double-digit growth rate in order to meet the production target.

Recently, Bhattacharya said the miner looked at the target as to meeting the requirement of the consumers.

Coal India, which produces 84 per cent of the country's coal, exceeded the target for March by excavating 66.07 million tonnes of coal.

Miner's two subsidiaries — South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) and Mahanadi Coalfields (MCL) — contributed most of its annual production by generating 140 million tonnes and 139.21 million tonnes of coal respectively.

For March only, its off-take was at 52.30 million tonnes, achieving 90 per cent of the monthly target of 58.30 million tonnes.

During 2015-16, the miner produced 538.75 million tonnes of coal and its off-take was at 534.50 million tonnes.

The miner's projected production volume was 660.7 million tonnes in 2017-18 and it envisaged production of 908.10 million tonnes in 2019-20 with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 12.98 per cent, with respect to 2014-15.