Coal news and updates

Coal Minister Piyush Goyal wants Coal India to sell crushed and washed coal only and has asked the company take steps so that only such coal is sold in the next three-four years.

 

He has also assured Coal India officials that environmental issues that are hampering production growth will be looked into and sorted out as soon as possible.

 

In his first meeting with the Coal India brass at its corporate headquarters in Kolkata, Goyal, said CIL should sell washed and crushed coal so that the quality issues are minimised.

 

He also asked the company to focus on production growth of about 50 million tonnes this year and has promised that environmental issues hampering growth will be sorted out soon.

 

Washing coal improves its quality and increases its energy content. Crushing it to a definite size helps the power sector which has to crush the coal to a powder form before it is charged into the boiler system. Such coal also fetches higher prices.

 

"The priority for us, at the moment, is to sort environmental issues and enhance coal supplies. The problems have developed due to years of inaction and policy paralysis. The sector has been suffering for many years on account environmental constraints many of which are unreasonable," Goyal said.

 

According to sources, restructuring is not on the coal minister's priority list while meeting production target is. 

At the meeting, first since Goyal took over as the minister, discussed various production related issues at the meeting which was attended by chairmen of CIL subsidiaries and top officials of CIL.

 

On splitting CIL subsidiaries into separate companies Goyal said, the company has seven subsidiaries which owns mines and one which undertakes prospecting and that is the status, he said.

 

On production enhancement, he said, "I have discussed with the environment minister and have setup a meeting in the next four days to sort out some of the valuable suggestions raised in the meeting."

 

 

Source: ET