With Railway Corridors In Place, Coal India To Reach Its Target Of One Billion Tonne Production Per Year By 2022-23

The state-owned, world’s largest coal producer, Coal India Ltd. ( CIL) will be able to reach its target of producing one billion tonne per year if all the proposed railway corridors are in place, reports Financial Express.

The plan to increase mine productivity will be faulty if there is no way to transport an incremental 350 million tonne per annum. An ICRA report delineates that rail connectivity is crucial to the coalfields of North Karanpura, in Jharkhand, Manraigadh in Korba and Gevra in Chhattisgarh under and Talcher & IB Valley in Odisha, since these would be significant thrust of CIL’s future coal production.

Northern Coalfields (NCL), as a subsidiary of CIL, is infusing Rs 1,150 crore into the company to join the 100 million tonne club. The only other two subsidiaries of CIL to produce 100 mt are South Eastern Coalfields and Mahanadi Coalfields. PK Sinha, Chairman and MD of NCL said that the company would produce 100.5 mts this fiscal when compared to 93 mt in produced in 2017-18.

He stated that their Capex (capital expenditure) of Rs 1,150 cores would go into procuring equipment and fund expansion to enhance their mining activities. NCL has almost finalised to expand the Jayant and Dudhichuia mines and to open a new one at green field Semaria mines in the next three years. These would yield 2mts of production per annum and have NCL produce 115 mts by 2022-23, thus keeping CIL’s target of 1 billion tonnes by that year.

Sinha said that the coal evacuation would get sorted in the next two-three years once the rail links between Katni and Singraulli (260 km) and Ramna and Singraulli (160km) are doubled.