Team News Riveting
Kolkata, January 13
State-owned Coal India Limited on Wednesday said it had scaled up its capital expenditure (capex) budget for the ongoing fiscal by an additional Rs 3,000 crore, revising it to Rs 13,000 crore.
The revision comes at a time when the government had directed central public sector undertakings (PSUs) to step up its capex to stimulate economic activity. CIL’s capex during the current financial year makes it one of the top spenders among the Indian PSUs.
This is for the first time in the history when country’s largest coal producing company had revised its capex upwards. The revision represents 30 per cent jump over CIL’s original capex target of Rs 10,000 crore for the financial year 2020-21.
Of the additional Rs 3,000 crore injected into CIL’s capex budget, South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), the largest coal producing subsidiary of CIL accounts for Rs 800 crore followed by CIL headquarters with Rs 585 crore and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited with Rs 550 crore. Central Coalfields Limited takes up Rs 460 crore.
Aimed to elevate production, the major heads CIL has identified for capex are land acquisition, procurement of heavy earth moving machinery, upgrade of rail evacuation infrastructure and mine development.
Maintaining its growth streak in capital expenditure since the beginning of the fiscal, CIL in a stellar show has posted a whopping 166 per cent growth at Rs 7,801 crore during the first nine months of the fiscal ending December’20, compared to Rs 2,930 crore capex that the company clocked during the same period last financial year, the actual spend was up by Rs 4,871crores.
“In the process, CIL has utilized 78 per cent of its total original capex budget during April-December’20. CIL was directed by the Ministry to achieve Rs 7,500 crore capex utilization by the closure of December’20, against which the actual capex utilization was Rs. 7,801 that is Rs 301 crore more” said a senior executive of the company.
CIL’s capex for the current year’s Q3 as well, ending December’20, at Rs 2,778 crore posted a strong 90 per cent growth against Rs 1,463 crore of same quarter last year. The increased spend during the third quarter was Rs 1,315 crore.
For Q2 of the current year, CIL logged a robust 312 per cent capex growth and a growth of 86.5 per cent in Q1.
Coal India’s land possession and civil construction jobs, among other activities, were hamstrung following COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently headway could be made with the situation improving post unlock, nudging its increased capital expenditure.
“CIL will be closely monitoring the progress of the capital expenditure to achieve the revised target of Rs 13,000 crore in the current FY,” the official added.
