State-owned miner Coal India Ltd saw a 52 per cent drop in net profit for the quarter ended March 2018 to ₹1,295 crore compared with ₹2,719 crore in the year-ago period.

While the results are not comparable due to the introduction of GST and the change in accounting principles, the company’s total income (net of taxes and including other income) saw a ₹2,275-crore rise.

However, that was offset by the ₹7,413-crore rise in employee benefit expenses (due to provisioning for anticipated hike of officers’ salary and pay revision of executive employees).

A Coal India statement further maintained that profit during the quarter absorbed the gratuity impact of ₹7,384 crore.

Total expenses during Q4 FY18 saw a 24 per cent year-on-year jump to ₹27,757 crore.

For the full fiscal, the company’s net profit fell 24 per cent Y-o-Y to ₹7,020 crore. Profit in the year-ago-period stood at ₹9,279 crore. Total income during the fiscal stood at ₹91,926 crore.

During the year, the company declared and paid an interim dividend of ₹16.50 per equity share of face value of ₹10 each, amounting to ₹10,242.24 crore.

The board has recommended that the interim dividend already paid be considered as the final dividend. No additional dividend has been declared for FY18, the company said in a notification to the bourses.

For FY18, coal production stood at 567.37 million tonnes (mt), a 2.39 per cent increase over the 554.14 mt reported in FY17.

Coal offtake for the fiscal stood at 580.29 mt, a near 7 per cent increase over FY17.

For FY19, the company has pegged its production and offtake at 630 mt (including e-auction).

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