Rama Krishna Sangem
Central government owned Coal India Limited (CIL) on May 1, Wednesday said its production increased 7.3 per cent to 61.8 million tonnes (MT) in April this year. The company had produced 57.6 MT of coal in the corresponding month of the previous fiscal, Coal India Ltd (CIL) said in a filing to the BSE.
CIL accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal production. The company’s coal offtake also registered a rise of 3.2 per cent to 64.3 MT last month, over 62.3 MT in the year-ago period. Coal offtake is the amount of dry fuel supplied from the pitheads.
Of the 61.8 MT of coal produced by CIL last month, a maximum of 16 MT was produced by Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) followed by 14.1 MT by South Eastern Coalfields (SECL) and 11.8 MT by Northern Coalfields Ltd among others.
CIL’s production increased 10 per cent to 773.6 MT in FY24 but fell short of its production target of 780 MT for the fiscal. Coal India Ltd’s production was 703.2 MT in 2022-23.
Centre Okays Rs 5,697 cr investments
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in January this year approved equity investments of Rs 5,607 crore by state-owned South Eastern Coalfields and Mahanadi Coalfields to set up two thermal power projects with total generation capacities of 2,260 MW.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, an official statement said.
According to the statement, South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) will set up a 660 MW thermal power plant through a joint venture of SECL and MPPGCL. Similarly, Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) will set up a 2×800 MW thermal power plant through Mahanadi Basin Power Ltd (MBPL – a subsidiary of MCL).
here will be an equity capital of Rs 823 crore (plus or minus 20 per cent) by SECL with an estimated project capex of Rs 5,600 crore (accuracy of plus or minus 20 per cent) for the proposed 660 MW supercritical thermal power plant through JV of SECL and MPPGCL at Amarkantak Thermal Power Station in Madhya Pradesh.
The CCEA has also approved an investment of Rs 4,784 crore equity capital (plus or minus 20 per cent) by MCL for the proposed 2800 MW supercritical thermal power plant in Sundargarh District, Odisha, with an estimated project capex of Rs 15,947 crore (accuracy of plus or minus 20 per cent) through MBPL.
