New Delhi: Coal India’s (CIL) newly-appointed chairman and managing director (CMD) PM Prasad on Saturday,while assuming charge, said that uninterrupted coal supply to the power sector is among the top priorities of the public sector coal mining major, according to a company statement.
“CIL would achieve the 780 million tonne (MT) output target of FY 2024 with all efforts and means available at its disposal,“ he said, adding that ensuring uninterrupted coal flow to the power sector is another priority area.
Prior to taking charge as Coal India CMD, he led the Jharkhand based Central Coalfields Ltd, a Coal India, subsidiary, to its production target achievement in FY23.
He has an over 30-year experience in the coal mining sector, and is a post-graduate in mining engineering from Indian School of Mines IIT Dhanbad. He succeeds Pramod Agrawal who stepped down on 30 June on attaining the age of superannuation.
Prasad began his CIL career in 1984 as a management trainee at Western Coalfields Limited and served in different capacities across different CIL’s subsidiaries. He also had a three year stint in NTPC as Executive Director (coal mining).
Meanwhile, Coal India’s production during Q1 FY 2024 shot up to 175.5 million tonne, the highest ever recorded during first quarter of any year, with a near 10% growth. Expansion in volume terms was 15.7 MTs which is significant as it came over a high base of 159.8 MT in similar quarter previous fiscal. Production for the month of June at 58 MT grew by 6.4 MTs posting a double digit growth of 12.4% compared to 51.6 MTs in June 2022.
“Output could have been even higher but for the heavy rainfall in the last week of June across our mining areas”, said a senior executive of CIL.
CIL’s over burden removal (OBR) continues its runaway pace as CIL excavated 497.5 million cubic metres (M.CuM) of OB during April-June 2023 period with the comparative period growth hovering high at around 30%. “This is an encouraging signal for us that facilitates faster future production” said the executive.
Total supplies during the quarter ended June 2023 were 187 MTs posting 5.3% growth compared to 177.5 MTs of Q1 FY 2022. Volume increase was 9.5 MTs.
Non-power sector consumers continue to receive higher quantities of coal in the current fiscal, which at the first quarter end at 33.4 MTs logged a robust growth of 34%. During the comparative quarter last fiscal supplies to this sector were 24.8 MTs.
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Updated: 01 Jul 2023, 03:13 PM IST