Govt not intending to privatise Coal India: Minister

The government does not intend to privatise state-owned Coal India Ltd, Union minister Pralhad Joshi said on Monday.

The statement comes in the wake of government opening up coal mining for the private sector and stating that the commercial mining will be done on revenue sharing mechanism instead of fixed rupee/tonne.

"The Government of India does not intend to privatise Coal India Ltd. Instead, the government is strengthening CIL and will continue to do so," the Coal Minister said.

The government, he said, has announced an investment of Rs 50,000 crores under Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan to create and develop infrastructure facilities for Coal India.

It will help Coal India achieve 1 billion tonnes coal production target by 2023-24, the minister said.

CIL accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal output.

"It's also an opportunity for CIL to open up new mines and increase coal production to reduce country's coal imports saving valuable forex," he said.

He said that CIL will substitute 100 million tonnes of coal import annually in near future.