Coal production by captive and commercial mines rose by 30.70 per cent Y-o-Y to 93.22 million tonnes (mt) during the April-January period in the current financial year ending March 2023.
“The Ministry has been actively engaging with various Centre and State government agencies both for starting new coal mines and for increasing coal production in the currently operational mines. As a result of such initiatives, production from captive and commercial coal mines has increased to 93.22 mt in April-January period of FY23 from 71.31 mt in FY22, showing a growth of more than 30 per cent,” Coal Ministry said in a statement.
To encourage companies to increase output, under commercial mining scheme, a rebate of 50 per cent on final offer is allowed for the quantity of coal produced earlier than scheduled date of production. Besides, incentives on coal gasification or liquefaction (rebate of 50 per cent on final offer) have been granted.
Rising output
The country’s domestic coal production has shown impressive growth during the past few years with output increasing to 778.19 mt in FY22, achieving an annual growth of 6.47 per cent, the Ministry said.
The rising trend of coal production has further gained pace in FY23, and the country’s total coal production recorded an impressive growth of more than 16 per cent Y-o-Y with an output of 698.25 mt during the April 2022 to January 2023 period compared to 601.97 mt in the year-ago period.
During this period, Coal India’s (CIL) production has also gone up by about 15.23 per cent to 550.93 mt from 478.12 mt. The increase in domestic coal production has helped the country curb import to a large extent in face of sharp increase in coal demand arising due to continuous rise in power consumption.
CIL dispatched 572.25 mt during April–January of FY23 achieving a growth of 5.5 per cent over last year in the same period. Similarly, Singareni Collieries Company (SCCL) dispatched 54.1 MT of coal during the same period.
Demand projections
The Coal Ministry has fixed the target of 1.31 billion tonnes for FY25 and the same is to go up to 1.5 bt by FY30. The actual demand increased to 1,027.92 mt in FY22 from 906.13 mt in FY21. For FY23, the demand has been assessed at 1,087 mt.