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CIL production crosses 400 million tonne-mark

KOLKATA: For the first time in its history, Coal India Ltd (CIL) surpassed the 400 million tonne-mark in production on March 29. It is now targeting a production of between 430 and 440 million tonnes in 2009-10, a company release said. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) in this regard was signed on Monday with the government, it said.

CIL Chairman P. S. Bhattacharyya said reaching this milestone was significant in view of the fact that the incremental 100-million tonne production had been achieved in five years against ten years taken to increase production to 300 million tonnes from 200 million tonnes in 1993-94. “We will ramp up output further and increase the rate of growth to touch the 500-million tonne-mark by 2011-12.”

Current year’s production would have been higher but for the cutback in production that had to be resorted to in order to prevent a build-up in inventories, it was learnt. CIL is expecting to close the year with a production of about 403.5 million tonnes (against the target of 405 million tonnes) and an inventory of 47.3 million tonnes against 45.6 million tonnes on April 1, 2008. The cutbacks were mainly at the Mahanadi Coalfields mines in Orissa, which accounted for a five-million tonne accumulation in stocks. CIL handed over a Rs. 1705.42-crore cheque towards dividend for 2008-09 to the Union Coal Secretary, C. Balakrishnan, maintaining its dividend at the level of the previous year. Mr. Bhattacharya said this was despite absorbing a Rs. 2,000-crore annual payment commitment on account of workers’ wage revision. CIL also signed with the government agreements on CSR (corporate social responsibility), project implementation and joint venture formation in the MoU, the release added.

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