After the incessant rains draining its ambitious plans to go for a coal production of 74 million tonnes this fiscal against 70 million tonnes target planned initially, the Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) has come to terms and has decided to go for 70 million tonnes by mining at least 2 lakh tonnes every day from now.
In the first five months of the current fiscal, till the end of August, the company has managed to produce only 24.3 MT of coal against target of 26.19 MT as part of the annual target of 70 MT. The production in five months has been only 34.7% of the annual target with July and August suffering heavy production loss due to rains.
Heavy rains have badly impacted production in open cast mines, which contribute about four-fifths of the total production. In July it was short by 32.5% when compared to the production in July last year. Similarly, it was nearly 17.5% less in August compared to previous August.
“However, when it comes to month-wise targets this fiscal, it was lower by 28.7% in July and 10.3% in August with a total 7.2% shortfall in the production against the target in five months. May and June witnessed higher production than the targets. Of the total shortfall of 1.89 MT production in five months, over 94.7% of it (1.79 MT) was during the last two months itself”, a senior executive explained.
Singareni is required to achieve 45.7 MT of coal production during the seven-month (September-March) period for reaching the target of 70 MT production with a monthly average of nearly 6.53 MT. “It’s a tall order by all means but very much reachable as the chances of rains affecting production are low from now, although there could be rains in September and October”, the official stated.
Reviewing the performance of SCCL in five months on Thursday, Chairman and Managing Director N. Sridhar said the production had been impacted badly in the last two months as July and August witnessed highest rainfall in four decades this time. The company’s plans to commence production in Naini (Odisha) coal block and V.K. opencast in Singareni area could come in handy to reach the production target.
