New Delhi, Apr 3 State-run mining giant Coal India missed its production target, producing just 431.325 million tonnes (MT) of coal in the just concluded fiscal, against the revised target of 440.20 MT due to green hurdles.
Coal India Ltd (CIL) had a production target of 460.5 MT for 2010-11, which was revised to 440.2 MT, barely a few days before the close of the fiscal.
“CIL could produce only 431.325 MT during the last fiscal as environmental clearances could not be obtained for its capacity expansion projects,” said a company official.
The production target could have been met from expansion projects but despite the company’s best efforts, it could not obtain clearances for the same from Ministry of Forest and Environment (MoEF), said the official on condition of anonymity.
The Coal Ministry in December last year had expressed concerns that delays in the grant of environment clearance to the miner were likely to result in a production loss of about 190 million tonnes, valued at about Rs 18,800 crore, by March 2012.
CIL was short of the revised target by 2.01 per cent while it missed the original, higher target by 6.3 per cent.
This has resulted in poor annual growth: the company output growth in the last fiscal is nil against a projected growth of about 7 per cent. In 2009—10, the company, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic production had produced 431.26 MT, closer to what it achieved in 2010—11.
In contrast, CIL’s coal output in 2009—10 had grown at 7 per cent more than the previous fiscal. In 2008—09, CIL’s production was 403 MT.
The official said production has taken a dip due to non- clearance of projects and “no go” classification by MoEF, which has affected many a projects of the company.
MoEF has put 203 coal blocks with a potential output of 660 million tonnes per annum in nine coalfields under the ‘no go’ mining zone.