Coal India (CIL) has breached its challenging production target of 700 million tonnes (MTs) one day ahead of FY'23 closure, on 30 March 2023.

The company produced 700.4 million tonnes (MTs) of coal till the penultimate day of FY'23, with100.4% target satisfaction. The growth was a robust 13% over 619.8 MTs of same date in FY'22. With a day left, CIL is likely to end FY'23 with 703.4 MTs output going by the current rate of production. It produced 622.6 MTs in the previous fiscal year.

“Overcoming the stiff target of 700 MTs was a challenging task but all our subsidiaries went the extra mile to chip in their best”, said a senior executive of the company.

The volume increase of a whopping 81 MTs in a single year, by FY'23 end, would be a historic high since the company's inception. It outstrips, by nearly two-fold, the previous high of 44.5 MT hike reported in 2015-16.

The 81 MT quantum upsurge of the year is almost equivalent to the combined growth of the previous seven financial years, beginning 2015-16.

Four of CIL's coal producing subsidiaries BCCL, NCL, WCL, and MCL have raced ahead of their respective production targets of FY'23. In percentage terms, BCCL clocked the highest achievement of 113% over the target.

Leading the production pace among CIL's subsidiaries, the Odisha based MCL with a high orbit production of 192.8 MTs accounted for 27.5% of CIL's total production. MCL logged 110% target satisfaction. The increase over FY'22 was 25 MTs.

SECL making a significant turnaround produced 166 MTs as of 30th March, up by 24.3 MTs compared to 142.5 MTs of last year. Rajmahal OC the flagship producer of ECL has picked up its production pace in this month leaving behind the lands issues that plagued it during the year. These two companies have big potential to contribute in the ensuing fiscal's quest of 780 MTs target.

Surpassing the over burden removal (OBR) target for the first time in seven years since 2015- 16, CIL made short the target of 1634 million cubic metres (M.Cu.M) four days before FY'23 closure on 27 March.

CIL's OBR rose to a new record of 1651.7 M.Cu.M as of 30th March, registering 101.4% of the target. The previous high was1362 M.Cu.M, The Growth was 21.6% over similar period of FY'22. The 294 M.Cu.M volume expansion in a single year till date is the highest ever increase.

“Growth in OBR is an encouraging indicator and bodes well for CIL in ramping up the production in the first quarter of FY'24, especially when faced with a challenging target of 780 MTs. Exposing the coal seam for future readiness, OBR facilitates faster coal extraction” said the executive.