“Coal production is the most important performance criterion and primarily focus should be on taking it to a higher trajectory,” Bhattacharaya said in a letter dated October 19 to the CIL employees.
“We have the requisite technology and proficient professionals in handling it. Our efforts should be to raise production levels in sync with the targets,” he said.
Stressing upon the need for suppling quality coal, Bhattacharaya said that it is as essential as providing the requisite quantity.
“The pressing need of the hour for us is to be more consumer centric. This is not a choice but an imperative...So, supplying quality coal is an essential ingredient in our business chain and we should be proactive in this endeavour,” the letter said.
Sizing, washing and correctly grading the coal supply are primary tasks before the PSU and these ingredients are simply non-negotiable, Bhattacharaya said.
“However, safety has to be a priority concern in all our operations. In quest of enhanced production, safety of miners, mines and machinery should never be compromised,” he said. The government has set an ambitious one billion tonnes of production target for CIL by 2020. Coal India accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal output.
Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal had earlier said CIL will produce at least 50 million tonnes (mt) more coal in the current fiscal than the last financial year.
He had said that last fiscal, CIL added 32 million tonnes, more than the cumulative growth of four years.
CIL achieved an output of 229.54 mt in the first six months of the current fiscal, missing its target of 235.49 mt.
Coal India’s output target for the current fiscal stands at 550 mt as against the recorded figure of 494.23 mt last fiscal.
Meanwhile, India, the world’s third largest producer of coal, imported 212.103 million tonnes (mt) of dry fuel worth over Rs one lakh crore in the last fiscal, the highest ever in terms of value and quantity. The coal imports in the financial year 2014-15 were at 212.103 mt, an increase of 27 per cent over the previous year, the provisional coal statistics of 2014-15 released by the Coal Ministry said.
Of the 212.103 mt of coal (worth Rs 1,04,524.1 crore), the non-coking coal import was 168.388 mt, while coking coal import was 43.715 mt, it said.