Coal India January output at 46.6 MT, misses target by 7%

NEW DELHI: Coal India, the world's largest miner of dry fuel, recorded an output of 46.60 million tonnes in January, missing its target by 6.9 per cent for the month. The company's output target for January was 50.09 million tonnes (MT), the company said in a filing to BSE. However, no reasons were given by the company for missing the target.

CIL also missed its output target of 403.56 MT for the first 10 months of the current fiscal and produced 388.98 MT of coal during April-January period. CIL had said that the two-day strike by workers last month affected its daily output by almost half as total production for these two days stood at 1.47 million tonnes. Nearly five lakh coal workers had gone on a strike following a call by trade unions in what was one of the biggest ever industrial action in four decades.

They were protesting against what they called attempts for "disinvestment in Coal India and denationalisation of coal mining".

The unions had given call for a five-day strike, but called it off after the end of the second day, following an over six-hour-long marathon meeting between trade union leaders and Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal, among others.

Four major trade unions -- Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Hind Mazdoor Sangh (HMS) -- observed strike on January 6, and January 7 at Coal India Ltd and its subsidiaries. State-owned Coal India's production target for the current fiscal has been set at 507 MT.