Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) faces a herculean task of producing an average of about 3.04 lakh tonnes of coal every day or 9.42 million tonnes this month to reach the target of 68 million tonnes production in the 2021-22 fiscal.
In spite of best of its efforts backed by increasing demand for coal from the energy sector as well as cement and steel industries, the company could achieve a production of 6.04 million tonnes in February, highest for a month in 11 months of 2021-22, at the rate of nearly 2.16 lakh tonnes a day. Incidentally, it was also higher that the month’s target of 5.91 million tonnes.
According to the company officials, coal production achieved by the company in 11 months of the current fiscal is 58.58 million tonnes against its plans to produce/mine 61.86 million tonnes or 3.28 million tonnes less than the target. “Achieving over 3 lakh tonnes of coal every day is no mean task even if the heavy machinery is put into use for 18 hours a day as mandated by the management to reach the target”, a senior executive overseeing mining operations said.
In March 2021, the coal mined by the company was 6.38 million tonnes at an average of nearly 2.06 lakh tonnes a day. The company has posted highest ever production in 2018-19 when it achieved 64.40 million tonnes and surpassing it is highly likely this year as it needs go of another 5.82 million tonnes coal production this month to better the previous best.
“We are confident to set a new record in coal production this fiscal as cross 64.4 million tonnes needs an average of 1.88 lakh production every day and it’s very much in our reach”, the executive said adding that in March last the company could produce 6.38 million tonnes. “The highest production record could have been breached in 2019-20 itself but Covid-induced lockdown during the second half of March 2020 made us stop short at 64.04 million tonnes”, he explained.
Last fiscal (2020-21) was the worst since 2014-15 as both coal production and consumption were hit by Covid lockdown impact, almost throughout the year. As a result, only 50.58 million tonnes production was achieved with nearly 57% of it coming during the last five months of the fiscal, when the economic activity started picking up, the SCCL official said.
