Coal India may miss output target for FY'15 by over 10 MT

New Delhi: State-owned miner Coal India Ltd is likely to miss its output target of 507 million tonnes by over 10 MT in the current fiscal on account of various delays at the level of states in operationalising mines.[caption id=“attachment_2144921” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Falling output of Coal India. Reuters[/caption] The target shortfall comes against the backdrop of the government’s ambitious plan to augment coal production to one billion tonne level by 2020. “We would be somewhere around 493 MT in the current fiscal,” Coal India chairman and managing director S Bhattacharya told PTI. He added that “in the absence of access to resources” it may not be possible for CIL to achieve the target for the current fiscal. “The environment clearance could not be operationalised at the state level,” he said. CIL’s output for the April-February period of the current fiscal was 436.96 MT against target of 450.14 MT. Bhattacharya had earlier said that ramping up output and improving profitability would be the top-most priorities for the company, although he admitted that the coal production target of 925 million tonnes by 2019-20 was a huge challenge. Coal India, which accounts for over 80 percent of the domestic coal production, has to achieve production of 507 million tonnes in the ongoing fiscal. The company had missed its output target of 482 million tonnes in the last fiscal and just produced 462 million tonnes of coal. PTI