Pithead stock at CIL mines rises to 53 MT

The pithead stock at Coal India mines increased by 15.2 per cent to 53 million tonnes (MT) in the fiscal ended March 31, as the company is facing constraints in evacuation infrastructure.
The PSU's pithead stock -- coal which has been mined, but not yet lifted for supplies -- in the previous fiscal was 46 MT, an official said.
Coal India had earlier said that a lot of deliberations have been carried out with the Coal Ministry and internally on various models to enhance rail connectivity for coal movement.
A Parliamentary panel had recently said that to achieve an output of one billion tonnes by 2020, Coal India should establish a matching evacuation mechanism and simultaneously develop rail infrastructure.

"The Committee notes that CIL has set for itself an ambitious plan of one billion tonne coal production by the year 2020. It feels that to achieve this target, it is equally important to put into place a matching evacuation of coal mechanism by simultaneous development of rail infrastructure," the panel said.
The committee further said that in order to achieve the planned growth in production and evacuation in future, CIL has undertaken a few major infrastructure projects to be executed by the Railways.

The rail projects include Tori-Shivpuri-Khatotia line with length of about 93.45 km for North Karanpura coalfields of Central Coalfields in Jharkhand.

Jharsuguda-Barpalli Railway 52.4 km line for IB Coalfields of Mahanadi Coalfields and for evacuation of coal from Mand-Raigarh and Korba Gevra coalfields of South Eastern Coalfields.
Moreover, Jharkhand government, Coal Ministry and Railways earlier this month had signed a memorandum of understanding for formation of a joint venture to construct railway lines in the command areas of Central Coalfields, a CIL arm.
Last month, the Coal Ministry entered into a pact with the railways and Odisha government to implement projects for evacuation of fossil fuel.