CIL will produce 50 mn tonne more coal than last year: Piyush Goyal

Power minister says govt has set an ambitious 1 bn tonne of production target for Coal India by 2020

State-owned CIL will produce at least 50 million tonnes more coal in the current fiscal than the last financial year, Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal has said.

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

"This year, Coal India will produce at least 50 million tonnes more than it did last year," Goyal said here.

He further said that in the last fiscal, CIL added 32 million tonnes which is more than the cumulative growth of four years.

"...The same set of people in Coal India who could not have growth of more than one, two, four% for decades... Have produced a growth of seven% last year. Today, as we speak they are at a growth of nine% in the current year and we will end this year with a growth of 11% plus," he said.

CIL recorded an output of 37.17 million tonnes in September, missing the target by 4.1%.

The company's production target for September was 38.77 million tonnes (MT).

CIL achieved an output of 229.54 MT in the first six months of the current fiscal, missing its target of 235.49 MT.

Coal India's output target for the current fiscal is 550 million tonnes. The company recorded an output of 494.23 million tonnes in the last fiscal.

The government had earlier said that it is hopeful that Coal India will surpass its one billion tonne excavation target by 2020.

The company accounts for over 80% of the domestic coal production.