Like Coal India Ltd, PSUs can deliver at par with TCS, Infosys: Piyush Goyal

NEW DELHI: Better vision and leadership can help state-owned firms to perform at par with top private players like Infosys, Wipro and TCS as has happened with Coal India Ltd which registered 12 per cent spurt in output, Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal has said.

"Who expected in our life time to see 12 per cent growth ( CIL output) in the first quarter. Had you heard of it. It is not that only private sector, Infosys, Wipro or TCS can do things better. Government company could do equally well or better," Goyal said yesterday.

After consistently missing targets for years, the world's largest miner of dry-fuel, CIL has recorded an output of 121.33 million tonnes (MT) in April-June quarter, recording a 12 per cent growth, over the same period last fiscal.

The coal giant achieved 99 per cent of the target during the period.

"It is more about vision, it is more about leadership. I must acknowledge," Goyal said, adding that the government has been continuously stressing the need for increasing production and has taken a number of steps for this.

The PSU could record barely a 31 MT increase in coal production in four years from 2010 to 2014 but in 2014-15, it recorded an increase of 32 MT in one year only, he said.

For the current fiscal, CIL's production target has been fixed at 550 MT, Goyal said.

CIL missed the production target for 2014-15 by 3 per cent recording an output of 494.23 MT. The company's output target was 507 MT for the fiscal.

In 2013-2014, the company had clocked production of 462.53 MT.

The Centre has announced plans to boost Coal India's annual production to the level of 1 billion tonnes by 2019 to meet growing fuel demand.