India’s coal production increased impressively by 17.13% to 524.20  Million Ton (MT) during April –November 2022 as compared 447.54 MT production during the same period of the previous year. Coal India Ltd (CIL) coal production reported 412.63 MT up to November of FY 23 as compared to 353.41 MT during the same period of the previous year representing an increase of 16.76%.

With an objective to enhance coal production capacity, Ministry of coal has put 141 new coal blocks for commercial auction and has been engaging regularly with various coal companies in the country and monitoring their production. The all-round efforts made to increase the domestic production and despatch have shown extremely good results. India is the world’s third largest energy consuming country and the demand for electricity grows by about 4.7% annually.

The Ministry has also amended the Mineral Concession (Amendment) Rules, 1960 under MMDR (Amendment) Act, 2021 to allow lessee of captive mines to sell coal or lignite up to 50% of the total excess production after meeting the requirements of the end-use plant. The amendment has paved the way for releasing of additional coal in the market by greater utilization of mining capacities of captive coal blocks which has led to increase in production of coal by Captive and Other companies by 33.41% to 71.07 MT during Apr-Nov’22 as compared to 53.27 MT production during corresponding period of FY 22.

      Coal Ministry is taking steps to augment rail connectivity infrastructure for all major mines under PM-Gati Shakti to ensure faster transportation. As a result, the total coal despatch have been to the tune of 557.95 MT during Apr-Nov’22 as compared to 519.26 MT during same period of FY 22 indicating a growth of 7.45 %  which shows steady and efficient amount of coal despatch to various sectors across the nation.

*****

AKN/RKP