Coal India Posts Rs 246cr Profit In 1996-97

The public sector Coal India Ltd (CIL) has posted a profit of Rs 246 crore in the financial year 1996-97 after providing Rs 796 crore for taxation. The companys accounts are to be finalised in September.

Provisional results show that four subsidiaries of CIL Northern Coalfields, South-Eastern Coalfields, Western Coalfields and Mahanadi Coalfields have posted profits for the year under review, while another four have run up losses.

The gross profits of the four subsidiaries stood at Rs 2,136 crore at the end of 1996-97. The profit before tax for these companies were Rs 741 crore, Rs 564 crore, Rs 531 crore and Rs 300 crore respectively.

 

On the other hand, Eastern Coalfields suffered a loss of Rs 500 crore, Bharat Coking Coal Rs 523 crore and Central Coalfields Rs 30 crore. North-Eastern Coalfields, a CIL division with headquarters at Margherita, also ran up a loss of Rs 41 crore. The losses of the these subsidiaries add up to Rs 1,094 crore, it is reported.

The provisional profit before tax figure for Coal India thus works out to be Rs 1,042 crore for the fiscal 1996-97.

It, however, remains to be seen whether this figure tallies with the final figure after the accounting procedure is completed in September.

Coal Indias gross profit of Rs 1,042 crore has been achieved on sales of Rs 16,753 crore. Of this, CIL will have to make provision of Rs 796 crore as tax. This tax is computed on the profits made in the four subsidiary coal companies.

The provisional figure for profit before tax for 1996-97 when campared with the Rs 611.44 crore profit before tax and investment allowance in 1995-96, shows a growth of 70.4 per cent. In 1995-96, Coal India felt the impact of wage revision with a large dose of arrear payments. In 1996-97, however, the impact of price increase of various grades of coal came in favour of CIL.

After decontrol of coking-coal and A,B,C grades of coal, Coal India hiked the prices of these categories in April and again in October 1996 resulting in the CIL subsidiaries earning additional revenue of Rs 1,300 crore.

The sales trunover of Coal India also saw a growth of 25.22 per cent from Rs 13,378.6 crore in 1995-96 to Rs 16,753 crore in 1996-97.