Coal India Ltd. (CIL) saw a 23.5% decline in its September 2019 output, producing 30.8 million tonnes against 40.25 million tonnes in September 2018. Coal offtake, too, dropped by 20% to 35.2 million tonnes.
CIL closed the first half (April to September 2019) with a 6% decline in output to 241 million tonnes against 256.5 million tonnes, the company said in a regulatory filing. Offtake dropped by 5.2%.
‘50% output loss’
CIL had ended the first five months of this fiscal with a 2.8% production decline. In August its output dropped by 10.3%. Enquiries showed that the coal strike — the first by the RSS-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and then, by all the trade unions in the last week of September — led to a nearly 50% output loss.
The strike was called separately by the BMS and the other trade unions ( INTUC, HMS, AITUC and CITU) to protest foreign direct investment in coal.
Production loss was also caused by heavy rainfall in western and certain parts of central India where at least two CIL subsidiaries — Western Coalfields Ltd. (WCL) and South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. (SECL) — are headquartered. Mines in Eastern Coalfields Ltd. were also hit similarly. Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd. (MCL) was affected by law and order problems.
All of CIL’s seven coal-producing subsidiaries suffered production decline in August with the sharpest falls being seen in WCL (43.8%), MCL (33.3%) and SECL (26.4 %). Altogether, four power plants were running with critical (less than seven days) and with three running with super critical coal stocks (less than four days) as on October 1, 2019 according to official reports. CIL is chasing a 660-million-tonne target this fiscal.
