The country’s coal production increased 15.10% to 784.41 million tonnes (MT) in the April-February period of the ongoing fiscal.
The country’s coal output was at 681.5 MT in the year-ago period, as per provisional figures of the coal ministry.
“Coal ministry has paved the way for releasing additional coal in the market by greater utilisation of mining capacities of captive coal blocks which has led to increase in production by captive and other companies by 29.83 per cent to 104.58 MT (provisional figure) during Apr’22-Feb’23 as compared to 80.55 MT produced during the corresponding period of FY 22,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry has also amended the Mineral Concession (Amendment) Rules, 1960 under MMDR (Amendment) Act, 2021 to allow lessee of captive mines to sell coal /lignite up to 50% of the total excess production after meeting the requirement of the end-use plants.
The ministry is taking steps to augment rail connectivity infrastructure for all major mines under PM Gati Shakti to ensure faster evacuation of coal.
As a result, the total coal despatch was at 793.86 MT during April-February period of current fiscal as compared to 740.96 MT in the year-ago period, registering a growth of 7.14%, which shows steady and efficient amount of coal despatch to various sectors across the nation.
With an objective to enhance coal production capacity, the ministry has put 141 new coal blocks for commercial auction and has been engaging regularly with various coal companies and monitoring their production. Hence domestic production and despatch have shown extremely good results.
Coal India Ltd (CIL) reported production of 619.70 MT up to February of FY 23 as compared to 542.38 MT during the same period of FY 22, representing an increase of 14.26%.
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