Coal India to close down 37 mines this fiscal

Coal India (CIL) will shut down 37 unviable mines in the current fiscal and redeploy surplus manpower from the sites proposed to be shut in nearby mine areas.
In a clarification to stock exchanges today, CIL said the company and its subsidiaries undertake an exercise every year to assess profit- and loss-making operating mines for a comparative study of performance to list out unviable ones.
At a review meeting with the coal major and its subsidiaries, the Ministry of Coal had found out that a sizeable number of mines are unable to recover the salary of workers.
The company and its arms have been asked to conduct a detailed study of such mines and report the action taken to list out the unviable ones.

"In view of the above, an action plan has been prepared by subsidiaries in which 37 unviable UG (underground) mines have been envisaged to be closed in 2017-18," CIL said in a filing to the BSE.
It, however, did not specify the locations and the total combined output of the mines which are proposed to be closed.
It further said: "The identified surplus manpower from these mines would be gainfully redeployed in nearby mines areas to reduce further loss in these mines," it said.
Coal India achieved an 8.5 per cent growth rate in production at 536 million tonnes (mt) in 2015-16. It accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal production.