Coal India January output at 52.86 MT; misses target

New Delhi: State-run miner Coal India Monday said it acheived a production of 52.86 million tonnes coal in January, lower than the target of 56.18 MT for the month.

During April-January period, the miner recorded 426.31 MT of coal as against a target of 439.26 MT.

Coal offtake in January was also lower at 48.32 MT than the targetted level of 50.85 MT for the month. During April-January, total offtake stood at 437.61 MT as against the target of 450.49 MT.

Coal India is the single largest producer of dry fuel in the world and the government has set a target of doubling its production to 1 billion tonnes by 2020.

The government has set a production target of 550 million tonnes for the CIL for the current fiscal.

Coal Secretary Anil Swarup last month had said that the PSU is set to hit a record production in the range of 540 MT to 550 MT in the current fiscal.

The state-owned firm accounts for over 80 percent of the domestic coal production.

Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal had earlier said that coal shortages will be a thing of the past and India will not need to import dry fuel by 2017, except to meet requirements of power plants located near coastal areas.