Coal India may miss the production target by seven million tonnes (mt) in 2013-14 because of various procedural delays. But the public sector miner is confident of meeting its offtake target, CIL Chairman and Managing Director, S. Narsing Rao, said on Thursday.
CIL has set a production target of 482 mt for this fiscal, while the off take target is set at 493 mt. Production means the actual coal mined, while offtake indicates the supplies made to consumers.
According to Rao, various procedural delays, including those related to forest and environment clearances, has hold up around 20 mt of production. This is coupled with evacuation hindrances are acting as primary problems for the miner to achieve its production target.
Though, some of this output (of 20 mt) would be brought on-stream. However, it would not able to monetise the entire capacity. These mines are located around Magadh, Amrapali and Garjanbahal.
In 2012-13, Coal India could not meet its production target. It mined 452.2 mt against the target of 464 mt, and offtake was recorded at 465.18 mt.
The offtake can be met through liquid stocks and evacuating more coal from the mines. The miner’s coal stock has reduced to 33.89 mt as on November 30 from 57.89 mt on April 1. The Chairman said that the offtake target would be achieved without liquidating more stock.
Citing an example of regulatory delays, the Chairman said that stage-I forest clearance for one of mines with 5 mt capacity was given on March 15. Ideally, the stage-II clearance that would have facilitated Coal India to go ahead and mine should have come within 90 days. But, the approval is yet not received.
Coal India’s performance is closely monitored by the Prime Minister's Office, as it directly impact electricity generation in the country. This week, the Government has held series of discussions involving Coal India, its nodal Ministry of Coal and the Ministry of Environment & Forests to remove bottlenecks in mining.
Moreover, the workers of Coal India have threatened to go on a three-day strike opposing Government’s move to sell shares in the company. The strike would severely impact production.
Rao said that the management has appealed to workers to take back the strike notice.
“There are several issues, which are not under the company’s purview. We are trying to sort out the worker’s demand such as performance-linked pay programme,” he added.
Not meeting production target in the current financial year would have a cascading effect the next fiscal, as the miner is expected to further scale up output in the future.