- Coal production dropped by 9 million tons in January.
- January’s target was 86.71 million tons, but only 77.79 million tons were produced.
- SECL and BCCL, the subsidiary companies, will be closely monitored for their performance in February.
It will have difficult for Coal India to make up for the production loss in January-2025, with the production in February-2025. Coal India fell short of its target in January, and it doesn’t seem feasible to recover the 9 million tons shortfall in February.
Coal India produces an average of three million tons of coal per day. Since February has only 28 days, the overall coal production will naturally be lower by about six million tons. In January, Coal India produced 77.79 million tons of coal against the target of 86.71 million tons. For the current fiscal year, Coal India’s target is 838 million tons.
There was a 0.8% decline in production in January. The company produced 77.8 million tons of coal in January, while last year in the same month it produced 78.4 million tons. However, in December 2024, Coal India’s production grew by 5.25%. From April-2024 to January-2025, Coal India showed a 1.8% increase, with a total production of 621.1 million tons, compared to 610.3 million tons in the same period last year.
In January-2025, the lifting of coal increased by 2.2%, reaching 68.6 million tons, compared to 67.1 million tons during the same month last year. In the first 10 months of the current fiscal year (April 2024 – January 2025), the lifting reached 630.2 million tons, showing a 1.8% increase from the same period last year, when it was 619.4 million tons.
As per a report published in a Hindi daily, the official sources stated that the overall decline in production in January-2025 was mainly due to the underperformance of some subsidiary companies, particularly South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) and Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL). These companies are expected to lag behind their targets again in February-2025, as per the current production data. SECL saw a 11.8% decline in production. In January-2025 2025, its production dropped to 17.4 million tons, compared to 19.7 million tons in the same month last year.
