Bhubaneswar: Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, has failed to meet its monthly target of coal production since the first month of financial year 2019-20. MCL posted month wise report in its official website defining their monthly performances from April to October of 2019. It shows continual fall short of their monthly target achievement in last seven months.
According to the report, MCL is supposed to achieve coal production of 839.51 lakh tonnes during month of April to October but it registers 641.67 lakh tonne in these months. In last fiscal, MCL had achieved 729.69 lakh tonne of in same period.
MCL’s report states that in Q1 of current fiscal, the company had set a target to produce 401 lakh tonne coal but it achieved only 347.77 lakh tonne. Similarly, the target for Q2 was 307.7 lakh tonne but it reached to 217.36 lakh tonne. Also, in first month of Q3 (October), it produced 76.54 lakh tonne of coal failing to reach its monthly target 130.81 lakh tonne.
Possibly, recurrent strikes at coal mines of MCL, started since the mishap at MCL’s Bharatpur open pit mining in July this year, might have led it to have poor performance in coal production. On the other hand, MCL’s Balram and Kaniha coal mines have been facing intermittent shutdowns, casting questions on their economic viability.
The production stoppages at these key operative mines have thrown a challenge to MCL which has set a target to achieve 160 million tonnes in coal production in this fiscal year.