Western Coalfields lines up Rs 6,280 crore investment by FY20

Western Coalfields (WCL), a Coal India arm, has finalised a capital investment plan of a whopping Rs 6,280 crore till 2019-20 in a phased manner.

The major chunk of investment, which works out to approximately Rs 3,486 crore and stretches from 2015-16 to 2019-20, will be on land acquisition, followed by Rs 2,032 crore on installation of plant and machinery.

WCL has also marked another Rs 242 crore for exploration, Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Chairman and Managing Director, said.

According to revised estimates, about Rs 850 crore are being spent on land acquisition during the current fiscal for opening new mines and Rs 350 crore on plant and machinery this year, Mishra, who completed one year at WCL recently, told PTI.

WCL, he said, is already in a turnaround mode, as it posted an operating profit of Rs 115.61 crore last financial year after running up losses for three consecutive years from 2011-12 to 2013-14.

It was in 2009-10 when the company pulled off a record production of 45.47 million tonnes, but things started deteriorating as the output plunged to 39.73 million tonnes. But thanks to better management, the coal subsidiary's production went up to 41.15 million tonnes in 2014-15 as it set a target of 45.10 million tonnes for the current fiscal.

With this target, WCL intends to achieve a growth rate of over 9.6 percent in 2015-16.

It has also drawn up an ambitious plan to open 36 mines in 36 months.

"We have already launched our plan and opened 10 mines with a production capacity of more than 20 million tonnes," he said.

To a query on outstanding dues from power generation companies and quality check, Mishra said WCL has succeeded in minimising the dues from Mahagenco, Karnataka Power, state electricity boards of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and public sector NTPC and Steel Authority of India (SAIL).