A senior official of the company, said, “At a time when the centre has been directing the CPSEs to scale up their capital expenditure for economic revival, CIL in a span of three years has stepped up its capex by three fold or 197% from Rs 6,270 crore in FY20 the capex shot up sharply to Rs 18,619 crore in FY23.”

Land was the major expenditure head at Rs 1,311 crore accounting for 28% of the total capex spend of April-July 2023. This was closely followed by the procurement of heavy earth moving machinery that took up Rs 1,083 crore or 23%.

Capex on construction of rail sidings and rail corridors and coal handling plants and silos, for faster evacuation of coal, was Rs 664 crore and Rs 572 crore respectively.

The company said that underscoring its resolve to shore up evacuation infrastructure the budgeted provision for construction of rail sidings and corridors was at Rs 4,169 crore, highest among the capital expenditure heads for entire FY 2024.

For land acquisition a total amount of Rs 2,907 crore was identified for the ongoing fiscal year. While construction of CHPs/Silos was pegged at Rs 2,174 crore, procurement of HEMM would take up Rs 1.965 crore in FY24. Rest would be on other heads like plant and machinery; solar projects, JVs and coal washeries.

“Our production is poised to increase substantially in the ensuing years and it is vital to align it with seamless coal transportation. This necessitates heavy investment in coal evacuation infrastructure and first mile connectivity projects with CHP/silo combination”, said the official.

Coal India is a coal mining company engaged in the production and sale of coal. As of 30 June 2023, the Government of India held 66.13% stake in the company.

The company's consolidated net profit fell 9.8% to Rs 7,971.04 crore despite of 1.8% rise in net sales to Rs 33,072.64 crore in Q1 FY24 over Q1 FY23.

The scrip declined 0.28% to currently trade at Rs 233.25 on the BSE.