The Hindu Business Line : Bharat Coking Coal turns around

The Dhanbad-based Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) achieved a turnaround in 2005-06, for the first time in its history. Till now described as a perennially sick subsidiary of Coal India Ltd (CIL), BCCL earned a profit (provisional) of about Rs 156 crore as against a loss of about Rs 959 crore in 2004-05. The loss incurred in the last year was inclusive of the arrears of National Coal Wage Agreement-VI amounting to about Rs 760 crore.

Highlighting the performance, the Chairman of BCCL, Mr P.S. Bhattacherjee, told newspersons here on Thursday that the gross and net sales of the company in 2005-06 was provisionally estimated at about Rs 3,514 crore and about Rs 3,159 crore compared to about Rs 2,884 crore and about Rs 2,540 crore, respectively in 2004-05. The washery segment incurring losses continuously till 2003-04 managed to turn around in 2004-05 with a profit of about Rs 58 crore, and earned profit of about Rs 280 crore in 2005-06.

Sustained measures

Mr Bhattacherjee said he was confident that the performance would be sustained. In order to ensure it for future years, a series of measures have been taken. Besides continuing the process of revamping departmental capacity and engaging hired heavy earth moving machine (HEMM) for coal production from isolated patches, a global tender was floated inviting international companies to set up a new Longwall Panel at Moonidih underground mine at the XVI top coal seam.

Moonidih was being developed to produce at least two million tonnes (mt) of coking coal for Steel Authority of India (SAIL), which, in turn, has agreed to invest about Rs 311 crore in two phases in the Moonidih project. It is learnt that two bidders, one from Russia and the other from China, had submitted technical bids for the project.

This apart, action was also taken to open 2 mt longwall panel at Moonidih XV seam and also amalgamation of North Tisra and South Tisra projects to develop a 5-mt capacity opencast mine.

The BCCL CMD said that the company had decided to focus more on coking coal production, as the sales realisation was more from this variety of metallurgical coal. He also expected the company to get out of the purview of the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) BIFR by 2010-11 when the net worth of the company would turn positive.

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