By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/ BHUBANESWAR: Coal India Limited has 447 coal blocks, mostly explored, under its disposal. In addition to these, 16 more blocks were allocated to CIL, 10 under the Coal Mines (Special Provision) Act and 6 under Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, making it the largest holder of coal resource in the country. Combined capacity of these 463 blocks is close to 170 billion tonne.
Coal India Limited chairman Pramod Agarwal said that there should be no cause of concern as there is no proposal to give away any coal block of for commercial mining. He added that CIL has sufficient number of coal blocks with abundant resource capacity to continue as a commercially viable entity even in the competition era
Agarwal also said that argued that having own Central Mine Planning and Design Institute is another huge advantage to CIL in a competitive scenario. He said “With exploration, mine planning, design, infrastructure engineering, environmental management as strong points, it sorts out most of coal mining issues giving CIL an edge over other participants in the coal sector. Also, CIL has a talent pool of multi-disciplinary professionals.”
The supply of coal by Coal India Limited to the power sector declined 24 per cent to 61.84 million tonnes in the April-May period of the current financial year as compared to 81.29 million tonnes in April-May, 2018-19. Similarly, Singareni Collieries Company Ltd supplied 5 81.29 million tonnes of coal in April-May to the power sector, registering a drop of 47 per cent over 9.40 81.29 million tonnes supplied in the year-ago period
The development comes at a time when Indian coal miners are beset with tepid demand for coal, with most of its customers, like the power sector, shying away from lifting adequate quantities.
