CIL to pump in Rs 57,000 crore in 5 years to ramp up output to 908 MT

State-owned Coal India Ltd has estimated a capital investment of Rs 57,000 crore over the next five years to increase the production to 908.1 MT, as part of the road-map for one billion tonne coal production by 2020, Parliament was informed today.

"Coal India has assessed a tentative capital investment of Rs 57,000 crore for the next five years to ramp up its coal production to 908.1 MT (million tonnes) from the production level of 494.80 MT in 2014-15", Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

The tentative capital investment projection for 2015-16 is Rs 5,990.5 crore, 2016-17 is Rs 8,282 crore, 2017-18 is Rs 14,539 crore, 2018-19 is Rs 14,635 crore, 2019-20 is Rs 13,529 crore, the minister said.

Further, Goyal said, CIL has envisaged to invest Rs 8,615.69 crore in the three major railway infrastructure projects- Tori-Shibpur in CCL (Jharkhand), Jharsuguda-Barapalli in MCL (Odisha) and East and East-West corridor in SECL (Chhattisgarh) for coal evacuation.

"Production of coal has faced evacuation constraints due to delay in construction of railway infrastructure. However, Bagli rail line is not known to Coal India Ltd", he said.

The government has set an ambitious one billion tonne (BT) coal production target for Coal India by 2020.