CIL to fully meet coal production target

Confident of fully meeting the coal production target, state-owned Coal India Ltd today said that several power stations in the country were facing coal shortage mainly due to lesser import together with lack of coal-handling infrastructure.

"CIL produced 379 million tonnes of coal last year and fixed a target of 405 MT this fiscal, which means the company has to produce an additional 26 MT of coal, Coal India Chairman Partha S Bhattacharyya told PTI here.

CIL was trying to achieve more than the targeted quantity as per the directive of the coal minister, he said.

He said that during the first half of the current financial year CIl produced 138.07 MT against a target of 137.02 MT.

 

On coal shortage in several power utilities in the country, he said that they imported 8.07 MT in 2007-08, against required quantity of 12.4 MT leaving a gap of 4.33 MT.

Fifty-three of the 72 power stations were facing a coal shortage, he said.

In the April to September period this fiscal, power utilities had to import 9.05 MT, but in actual terms the import during the period was only 3.94 MT resulting in a gap of 5.11 MT, he said.

The stock position, he said, would have been comfortable if the power stations had made imports as per targets.

To a question, Bhattacharyya said that CIL has decided to import four MT of coal during this fiscal to meet the demand.

Talks were on with MMTC for this purpose.