CIL assures efforts for increase coal supply to consumers

NEW DELHI: Coal India has assured the government that it will make efforts to increase coal availability to the users by 28 million tonnes in the current financial year to tide over the shortages.

Coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal gave this assurance on behalf of the Maharatna PSU to the group of ministers (GoM) which met last week to take stock of the problems affecting the coal production, including those relating to clearances by the Environment Ministry, sources said.

"Coal India will try to lift 28 million tonnes of coal from pithead," an official said. Besides the problem of environment clearances, the stock piled at the pitheads of the coal mines has reached 70 million tonnes.

Coal India (CIL) is facing difficulties in transporting the dry fuel from pithead to the consumers like power, steel and cement plants for want of railway rakes, company sources said. Jaiswal assured the GoM that the CIL would make efforts to reduce the stockpile from 70 to 42 million tonnes by March 2012.