Coal India Ltd. (CIL) has increased its supplies to the power sector by 11. 1 per cent in the first nine months of 2012-13, when coal-based power generation increased by 13 per cent in the country. It supplied 246 million tonnes during this period. CIL increased its overall offtake by 11.2 per cent during the first three quarters.
Good growth
It is now hoping to close 2012-13 with supplies of 347 million tonnes to the power sector, which, if achieved, would reflect a 35 million tonne annual growth compared to 8 million tonnes in 2011-12, four million in 2010-11 and a mere two million tonnes in 2010-11.
“The 11.1 per cent increase in deliveries to the power sector is a very significant number by itself as this compares with the two per cent growth of the same period in previous fiscal,” said CIL chairman S Narsing Rao. Better availability of railway rakes, improved production and drawdown from stocks helped improve supplies. .
Mr Rao was hopeful that CIL would close in on its year’s despatch target of 470 million tonnes. Of this, 363.2 million tonnes of coal has already been despatched to the various sectors.
This included a 25 million drawdown from pithead stocks.
Stocks, which stood at 70.8 million tonnes on April 1, 2012, are now at around 45 million tonnes.
Production, too, has increased, although at a lesser pace than offtake. Between April 1, 2012 and January 20, 2013, production reached 338.5 million tonnes, which is 19.6 million tonnes higher than the same period a year ago and reflects a growth of 6.1 per cent against the 6.5 per cent being targeted for the fiscal year.
Although this rate is considerably higher the previous year, reaching the target is looking an uphill task as CIL would have to produce 1.76 million tonnes daily to reach its 464 million target.
CIL tried to beat the monsoon blues this fiscal, but was affected by flooding in some of its opencast mines.
While it lost 15 million tonnes of output to rains (26 million tonnes previous fiscal), it took an unexpected hit of 3 million tonnes due to Cyclone Neelam in November. Mr Rao felt that the offtake should be a more relevant target for the PSU as it meant supplies to the customer and revenues to CIL.
