Coal India production target likely at 464 MT for FY13

Sunday, Jan 22, 2012

The production target for world's largest coal producer Coal India (CIL) is likely to be fixed at 464 million tonnes (MT) for 2012-13.

"In the preliminary meeting held last week, the Planning Commission has set a production target of 464 million tonnes (MT) for CIL for 2012-13," a government official said.

However, the Planning Commission, in a meeting to be headed by Planning Commission Member (Energy) B K Chaturvedi, is likely to take the final decision on the production target by the month-end, the official said.

Representatives from different ministries, including coal, steel and power are likely to participate in the meeting, he said.

Last month, CIL had lowered its production target for the ongoing financial year to 440 MT from the estimate of 452 MT in its annual plan.

The company had cited various reasons like heavy rainfall, strike and delays in the grant of forestry and environmental clearances to coal projects for the downward revision in the production target.

Earlier, CIL had asked the government to scale down its production target for the 2011-12 to 448 MT, fearing it will not be able to make up for the slippage in output in the first half of the fiscal.

The public sector company had missed its April-September target by about 20 MT, recording an output of 176 MT against the target of 196 MT.

The PSU had also missed its revised production target last fiscal too, recording an output of just 431 MT.

CIL had a production target of 460.5 MT for 2010-11, which was revised down to 440.2 MT.

(sourced BS)