Coal India output in October at 40.2 million tonnes

State-owned CIL produced 40.20 million tonnes (MT) of coal in October, beating its target of 39.74 MT for the month.

However, the company missed its output target of 259.85 MT for the first seven months of the current fiscal, producing 250.96 MT of coal.

However, no reasons were given by Coal India Ltd (CIL) for missing the target for April-October period.

The company's offtake in October stood at 39.11 MT, against the target of 40.94 MT, the company said in a filing to BSE.

Coal India had missed its output target for the fifth consecutive month producing 34.88 million tonnes (MT) of coal in September against targeted 36.17 MT.

In August, the output was 34.54 MT against the target of 35.13 MT. In July it achieved a production of 33.01 MT (35.86) and in June it was 34.54 MT (36.84).

In May, the output was 36.27 MT against target of 38.46 MT.

Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal had earlier asked Coal India to ramp up production from its existing mines.

CIL, which accounts for 80 per cent of domestic coal production, missed its output target of 482 million tonnes for 2013-14, producing 462 million tonnes during the period.

Production fell short of target because of various reasons, including lack of environment clearance to coal mining projects.

In 2012-13, the company produced 452.5 million tonnes of coal, falling short of the 464 MT target.