State-run Coal India Limited, the country's largest coal producer, has missed its annual output target by 32.63 million mt, after producing 567.37 million mt during the fiscal year to March 2018, the company said in a regulatory filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange Sunday.
Output for fiscal year 2017-18 was up 2.4% from the previous year.
Two subsidiaries of CIL -- South Eastern Coalfields Limited and Mahanadi Coalfields -- contributed the most by producing 144.71 million mt and 143.06 million mt of coal, respectively. The miner has eight subsidiaries.
Coal shipments for the year stood at 580.28 million mt as against the target of 600 million mt, but increased 7% year on year.
CIL supplied 454.3 million mt of coal to the power sector during the year ended March 31, 2018, showing a growth of about 7% from a year ago, the company said.
To enhance CIL's production, 11 new coal blocks have been allotted to its subsidiaries -- Eastern Coalfields Limited, Bharat Coking Coal Limited and Western Coalfields Limited . This will help these blocks expand their production to over 100 million mt/year each.
CIL also obtained 21 environmental clearances, which would help in adding another 43 million mt to its annual production capacity in the current fiscal year, which began April 1, 2018.
As on April 1, coal inventory stood at 55.49 million mt against last year's inventory of 68.42 million mt, CIL said.
On a monthly basis, the company produced 72.28 million mt of coal in March, exceeding the target output of 68.68 million mt.
The offtake for March stood at 55.19 million mt as against the target of 58.41 million mt.
CIL, which meets 84% of the country's coal requirement has a target of 630 million mt of coal production in the current fiscal year and it is planning to produce 1 billion mt of coal by 2020.
