Business OpportunitiesCIL targets 7.7% growth in 2009-10
State-owned Coal India Limited (CIL) has set a production growth target of 7.7 per cent during the current financial year, its Chairman Partha S Bhattacharya said.
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"Last year, the production growth rate of CIL was 6.4 per cent. This fiscal, we want to set it at 7.7 per cent," Bhattacharya said.
He said so far, CIL has been able to meet the country"s coal demand which is primarily driven by the power sector.
According to him, this was possible because the country had not been able to add the required generation capacity during the 10th plan period.But during the 11th plan period, demand would outstrip supply for which production growth target had been raised, he said at the AGM of Indian Coal Merchants" Association here today.
During the residual period of the 11th five year plan, the production target had been fixed at nine per cent.
He regretted that although there was growth in production, growth in offtake was lower. The average growth of CIL during the last plan period was 5.5 per cent.
Bhattacharya said CIL was embracing for another round of coal price hike necessitated by the hike in wages and salaries of workers and executives.
He said so far CIL had resorted to only three rounds of price hikes in 2001, 2004 and 2007.
Bhattacharya said annualised price in coal was 3.5 per cent against the average inflation rate of 7.5 per cent.
In this context, he said coal consumers had been subjected to least price volatility in coal with standard deviation being marginal.
The CIL chief also took comfort in the fact that coal imports had been enjoying a deep discount in import prices which had made user industries globally competitive.
For the 11th plan period, CIL had set a target production of 520 million tonnes.
Meanwhile, CIL was also in the process of divesting a part of its stake to public and employees through an initial public offering.
Bhattacharya also criticised the archaic forest and environment rules which were hindering coal production in the country.