Stating that Coal India Limited (CIL) is likely to miss the production target for the October-December period, CIL chairman, S. Narsing Rao on Monday said the festival period and destruction caused by cyclone ‘Nilam’ had impacted mining activity and coal production.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the Coal India summit in New Delhi, Mr. Rao said the month of October was extremely good. However, November has not been so great due to Nilam which caused lot of destruction and then came the festivals which had an impact on the coal production. “Today, we are not as comfortable as we would like to be,” he added.
CIL had set a production target of 125 million tonnes for October-December quarter of the present fiscal. During the April-October period, CIL’s production grew by nine per cent at 208.3 million tonnes over the same period last year. CIL has set a target to produce 464 million tonnes production for the current fiscal. Last fiscal, it had produced 435.84 MT and had drawn up an elaborate plans to reach a production of 615 MT level by 2016-17.
Meanwhile, asked about the possibility of meeting the November-end deadline for inking the fuel supply agreement (FSA) with power firms, Mr. Rao said that the onus is on the power firms and not on CIL. “You have to ask them who wants to sign the contract. We have kept the final approved version open on the website since October 13,” he remarked.
Mr. Rao said the company had started exploration in a coal block in Mozambique twelve days ago and this would likely to be completed by the end of next year.
The FSAs have once again run into controversy with the Power Ministry conveying to the Coal Ministry objections to certain clauses which were against the interests of the power producers. The Prime Ministers Office (PMO), which is monitoring the whole issue, has a set a deadline of November 30 for signing of FSAs.
