Former Ranchi-based Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) chairman-cum-managing director, P M Prasad ,who has been recently appointed as the chairman of CCL’s parent public sector unit, Coal India Limited (CIL), on Thursday said his priorities will be to set the coal major on the course of producing one billion tonnes of coal by the 2025-26 financial year.
Prasad will take charge of the post at the CIL headquarters in Kolkata on Saturday.
Talking to TOI, he said, “The CIL produced 700 million tonnes (MT) of coal in the last financial year. This year, it set a target of producing 780 MT. India still imports somewhere between 160MT and 200MT coal annually. CIL’s enhanced production will reduce dependencies on imported coal.”
Prasad, who served as the CCL CMD for nearly three years, also said he will also push the PSU towards producing 3,000MW of solar power in the next two years.
Another of his priorities would be to push the commissioning of its two thermal power plants in Odisha and Chhattisgarh, he said.
CIL is eyeing two captive thermal power units of its own. While one plant of 1,600 MW capacity is proposed in the Mahanadi Basin in Odisha, the other with 500 MW capacity is proposed in Chhattisgarh in collaboration with the state government there.
Besides setting up its thermal power plants, CIL is aiming to put more effort into increasing the collective production capacities of its subsidiary units in underground coal mining to 100 MT in the coming years. At present, the CIL’s functional underground coal mines collective produces approximately 25MT of coal annually.
Notably, the Hemant Soren government has been vocal in recent years against CIL and demanded that the latter pay up its outstanding compensation amount, which is a little over Rs 8,000 crore, for the 20,000 acres of land which the PSU has acquired from the state government over the years.
