Team News Riveting
Raipur, August 20
Coal India Ltd (CIL) Chairman Pramod Agrawal had a hectic visit to the mines managed by its flagship arm in Korba, giving an overt signal that the state-run miner was keen to pull up the socks to boost production.
Agrawal, 1991-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer of Madhya Pradesh Cadre 1991 batch, inspected Gevra, Kusmunda and Dipka mines of the South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) — the largest coal producing company in India today. The three mines account for lion’s share in the company’s total output.
However, the production in the first four months was down by nearly 18 per cent. During the period April to July, SECL produced 36.79 million tonnes (MT) of coal as against 44.65 MT extracted during the corresponding period last year. The production was down by 4.3 per cent in the financial year 2019-20 as compared to previous year’s figure.
Official sources hinted that Agrawal’s visit had been aimed to explore the possibilities of accelerating mining and enhancing production. The Chairman had already indicated that given the situation, he was hopeful to end the year with 650-660 MT of production as against the target of 710 MT for fiscal 2020-21.
Agrawal would hold a high level meeting with the officials in Bilaspur, the SECL headquarters on Friday to explore the possibilities and prepare an action plan to enhance coal production. The General Managers of the three major mines had been reportedly asked to attend the meeting while others would join through video-conference.
