'CIL Is Confident Of Staying Ahead'

Coal India, the largest coal mining entity in the world, is entrusted with the task of powering most of country’s electricity generation. While it needs to gear up to face the challenge of growing power consumption in line with growing urbanisation and economic growth, Coal India also has to brace up for a world more reliant of renewable energy and where private miners would bring in their technologies and efficiencies, Shyam Nandan Prasad, Director (Marketing) of Coal India tells Arindam Bandyopadhyay in an exclusive interview.

With competition from the private sector set to become a reality in the domestic mining space, where do you see Coal India standing 10 years down the line?

We see private sector participation in Indian coal market as complementing Coal India’s efforts rather than competing with our position. One thing is becoming certain. The indigenous demand for coal is far outstripping the rate of indigenous production. If someone steps in to fill that gap it would be a welcome step. Given its experience and core competence, Coal India is confident of staying ahead. Going forward Coal India continues to fuel the energy aspirations of the country at least for the foreseeable future. The company plans to produce 1,002 million tons (mt) by 2025-26.

The industry knows about CIL’s areas of strength. But, how are you preparing to work on technological upgrading and efficiency improvement where CIL is said to be lagging vis-a-vis private miners/MDOs?

CIL’s mechanisation of open cast mines is comparable with the best in the world, and we have draglines of 24/96 capacity, Dumpers up to 240 tons and 45 Cu Meter which are the standard combination of machines in large OCPs. Technological adoption and upgrading to modern methods is a constant endeavour in CIL. While certain contractual issues have hindered the procurement in the past, we have ironed out the wrinkles and are procuring the equipment through tendering process avoiding delays.

CIL’s 2020 production target of 1 billion tons has been pushed to 2025. What are the production and despatch numbers you are looking at for the next five years? How do you plan to reach those targets?