Coal India needs to step up to double digit growth rate: Chairman Sutirtha Bhattacharya

Coal India Ltd (CIL), which produces 84 per cent of country's coal output, "needs to step up to a double digit growth rate from that of around 9 per cent achieved during 2015-16" to meet its production targets, company Chairman Sutirtha Bhattacharya said on Wednesday.

"Going forward, in order to meet the production targets, Coal India needs to step up to a double digit growth rate from that of around 9 per cent achieved during FY 2016...during the first four months of FY 2017, Coal India's production growth was more than 6 million tonnes (mt) over the same period last year," he said while addressing shareholders at the company's 42nd Annual General Meeting.

In 2015-16, the miner produced 536.51 mt of coal against a target of 550 mt and its off-take stood at 532.26 mt.

The company envisaged production of 908.10 mt in 2019-20 with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 12.98 per cent with respect to 2014-15.

During 2016-17, the coal production target has been pegged at 598.61 mt with an annualised growth of about 11.6 per cent. In 2017-18, coal production is expected to be 660.7 mt with a growth of about 10.5 per cent.

He said the estimated geological resource of Indian coal stood at 306.59 billion tonnes as on April 1, 2015.

Coal behemoth reported that its consolidated net profit dipped by 14.78 per cent to Rs 3,065.26 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2016 as compared to Rs 3,596.92 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

Its net sales for the quarter stood at Rs 17,796.05 crore, down 6.1 per cent from Rs 18,955.75 crore in the year-ago period.

The miner produced 125.67 mt of coal in April-June quarter of the current fiscal against a target of 132.43 mt, achieving 95 per cent of the production target set for the quarter. However, its production grew by 3.56 percent in the period as compared to 121.35 mt produced in the corresponding period last year.

CIL's off-take stood at 133.24 mt in the quarter ended June against a target of 149.88 mt. Its off-take grew by only 2.98 per cent in the quarter as compared to off-take of 129.39 mt in the year ago period.

In its latest annual report, coal-mining behemoth said it would invest Rs 7,765 crore as capital expenditure and Rs 5,069 crore in various other projects in 2016-17.