Coal India Ltd.

The production target for world's largestcoal producer Coal India (CIL) is likely to be fixed at 464 million tonnes (MT)for 2012-13. In the preliminary meeting held last week, the Planning Commissionhas set a production target of 464 million tonnes (MT) for CIL for 2012-13. However, the Planning Commission, in a meeting to beheaded by Planning Commission Member (Energy) B K Chaturvedi, is likely to takethe final decision on the production target by the month-end. Last month, CILhad lowered its production target for the ongoing financial year to 440 MT fromthe estimate of 452 MT in its annual plan.The company had cited variousreasons like heavy rainfall, strike and delays in the grant of forestry andenvironmental clearances to coal projects for the downward revision in theproduction target.

Earlier, CIL had requested the government toscale down its production target for the 2011-12 to 448 MT, fearing it will notbe able to make up for the slippage in output in the first half of the fiscal.The public sector company had missed itsApril-September target by about 20 MT, recording an output of 176 MT againstthe target of 196 MT. The PSU hadalso missed its revised production target last fiscal too, recording an outputof just 431 MT. CIL had aproduction target of 460.5 MT for 2010-11, which was revised down to 440.2 MT.