Coal India's Jharkhand arm posts record output of 61 mn tonnes

It is the second straight year that Central Coalfields has achieved double digit growth and met its target as well

Coal India's Jharkhand arm Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL) posted a record production of 61.35 million tonnes (MT) in 2015-16, which was the second consecutive year of double digit growth for the company.

"This is the second consecutive year when Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL) has achieved double digit growth and achieved its target as well. The company produced 61.35 MT of coal, the highest ever, against the target of 60.60 MT," CCL CMD Gopal Singh told PTI.

The growth in output was about 10.25 per cent and efforts are on to maintain double digit growth in future, he said.

Last year, the PSU had achieved 55.65 MT production.

During the period 2009-10 to 2012-13, the company's coal production was stagnating at around 48 MT.

"During a span of about three years from 2013 to 2016, six greenfield projects have been commissioned, which has no parallel in the coal industry," he added.

Last year in May, the Magadh Project under Magadh and Amrapali area of CCL was inaugurated. It has a capacity of 51 MT per annum, which can go up to 70 MT.

Under a unique initiative, a record 2,250 cases were redressed out of total 2,687 cases registered relating to employees as well as stakeholders problems, ranging from provident fund to land and other issues, he said.

A 'samadhan kendra' was set up in CCL headquarters at Ranchi in February 2012. Singh said the PSU accorded top priority to becoming a 'zero grievance company'.

On overburden removal front, the company could remove about 106.9 million cubic metre overburden during the fiscal, the highest ever, against the target of 100.0 million cubic metre.

Coal offtake too was at a record level of about 59.6 MT.

Out of the 11,684 acres of land authenticated in the last three years, 10,289 acres were authenticated in 2015-16 alone.

Talking about modernisation, he said while growth in washed non-coking coal production was about 29 per cent, "three new washeries are being set up. Tenders for two washeries Karo (3.5 MT) and Konar (7MT) have already been floated. It is planned that all new mines with a capacity of over 10 MT will have their own washery along with reject-based power plant."

During the 2014-15 fiscal, CCL became the first subsidiary of Coal India to achieve its production target by registering unprecedented growth of 11.2 per cent in raw coal output.

Overall, Coal India, the world's largest miner of dry fuel, has achieved an 8.5 per cent growth in production at 536 MT in 2015-16, but missed its target of 550 MT.

CIL, which accounts for 80 per cent of domestic output, has eight subsidiaries -- ECL (West Bengal), BCCL (Jharkhand), CCL (Jharkhand), SECL (Chhattisgarh), WCL (Maharashtra), NCL (Madhya Pradesh), MCL (Odisha) and NEC (North East).

The Centre has announced plans to boost Coal India's annual production to the level of one billion tonnes by 2019 to meet growing fuel demand. However, the company has successively missed its output targets.