The outstanding dues of the power sector for the coal supplied by the mining PSUs fell only marginally on a m-o-m basis to ₹20,343 crore at the end of February 2023, of which the majority is owed to Coal India Ltd(CIL).

According to the latest data by the Coal Ministry, power-generating companies owed ₹16,629.41 crore to the mining behemoth, while ₹3,713.15 crore was the outstanding dues of Singareni Collieries Company (SCCL).

With respect to the country’s largest coal miner, the outstanding dues on a month-on-month basis were lower by 1.4 per cent from ₹16,857 crore in January 2023. However, the dues of SCCL were higher by 2.2 per cent from ₹3,634 crore during the same review period.

CIL dues

The dues to CIL, which were the highest during January 2023 in the current financial year, have only declined marginally in February. The dues have been inching up consistently since November. CIL’s average cost of production is around ₹1,310.88 per tonne.

At the end of January 2022, the dues stood at ₹15,097.01 crore, which fell consecutively during February to ₹15,037.32 crore and then to ₹12,272.41 crore in March 2022.

With peak electricity demand season beginning in April 2022, which this year was also marked by an unusually high uptick in temperatures, the power sector dues started inching up at ₹12,819.09 crore during the month.

The dues kept growing during May (₹13,825.20 crore), June (₹15,252.20 crore) and hit the highest so far in 2022 during July at ₹15,824.14 crore. The outstanding to CIL started to decline from August 2022 onwards (₹15,143.31 crore) and continued their northward journey during the next two consecutive months.

Production and target

Domestic coal production is expected to grow by 6-7 per cent annually in next few years to reach about 1.5 billion tonnes in FY30.

During April-February of FY23, India’s coal production rose 15.14 per cent to about 785.24 million tonnes (mt) of coal compared to about 681.98 mt during the same period of last year. CIL’s production rose by 14.26 per cent to 619.70 mt up to February during the fiscal year.

The production by Captives and other companies grew by 29.83 per cent y-o-y to 104.58 mt on a provisional basis during April-February of FY23.

As per sources, the country would have a coal requirement of 821 mt for the Domestic Coal Based (DCB) plants during FY24.

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