New Delhi: With the production of thermal coal on the rise, the government is hopeful that state-owned Coal India will surpass its one billion tonne excavation target by 2020. said Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal on March 26. "We are expecting the companies to supersede coal production targets, I am hopeful that Coal India would exceed targets set for it by 2020."
The production of thermal coal in the country has increased by 8 per cent, he added. The government has set an ambitious one billion tonne coal production target for Coal India by 2020. Even as the Minister is optimistic that Coal India will achieve its target by 2020, the PSU firm is likely to miss the set production target for the current financial year.
Coal India may miss its output target of 507 million tonnes (MT) by 10 MT, during the current fiscal, on account of various delays in operationalising mines. However, the government may set a target of 550 MT coal output for Coal India in the next financial year (2015-16). Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the government and Coal India on the same is likely to be signed shortly.
Coal India's output for April-February period was 436.96 MT as against the target of 450.14 MT, as per official data. The company had missed its output target of 482 MT in the last fiscal (2013-14) by producing 462 MT of coal. Coal India Chairman and Managing Director S Bhattacharya had earlier said that ramping-up output and improving profitability are among top priorities for the company.
On auctioning of coal linkages, Goyal said: "We have a committee which is exploring various options of what we should do with the linkages. We have not decided on particular course of action. Once the committee gives its report, we will take take a considered view in continuation of our effort to bring transparency and integrity in the whole system."
Refusing to give the deadline he said: "It is issue of very huge dimension. There are several states, which are involved which have coal linkages... I think a very detailed review and composite examination of all aspects should be taken, which the committee is doing." State-owned Coal India Ltd has been asked to auction annual coal quantities it sells to users like power plants, through a transparent process.
CIL will provide quantities to be offered in the so-called linkages, which are provided to bulk users, along with timelines of the auction, according to the minutes of a meeting held in the Coal Ministry. Government is now mulling auctioning coal linkages through the competitive bidding route and has recently constituted an inter-ministerial panel to look into various models to implement it, a move aimed at bringing greater transparency in the allotment of linkages.
