Coal India adheres to environmental, sustainable standards, says CMD

Coal India Ltd (CIL) on Saturday said its coal producing subsidiaries follow environmental and sustainable standards but there could be "some stray cases" of lapses.

The miner's comment came after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in a report, said that six, out of seven coal producing subsidiaries of CIL, did not formulate environmental policies as mandated by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

The ministry stipulated that a well-laid down environment policy duly approved by the board of directors of the subsidiaries needs to be in place, the CAG report said.

"I have not seen the CAG observation report but we have environmental and sustainable standards. We have also put our sustainability report in the public domain," Coal India chairman and managing director A K Jha said on the sidelines of ICAI conference.

Jha further said, "You cannot operate such a large PSU without following these. By and large, all the subsidiaries follow standards. Our operation is in 8 states, there may be some stray cases (of lapses)."

The world's largest coal miner is expecting to achieve a double digit growth in production for January 2020, he said.

Coal India production till November in the current fiscal has suffered due to prolonged monsoon but since December it has improved, Jha said.

"In December, we achieved 7.5 per cent growth and in January, we will cross 10 per cent," he said.

Jha said the miner is trying to achieve its production target of 660 million tonne for the current fiscal.