Severe heatwave and the power crisis in the country has led to the production of 661.54 lakh tonnes of coal in the month of April. During this time, Coal India Ltd (CIL) and its subsidiaries produced 534.7 lakh ton coal.
The production by Singareni Colleries Company Ltd (SCCL) stood at 53.23 lakh ton and production from captive mines touched 73.61 lakh ton during last month. The total offtake of the coal sector was 708.68 lakh ton during the month, while the power sector offtake touched the figure of 617.2 lakh ton in the last month.
It is worth noting here that the offtake to the power sector from Coal India alone stood at 497.39 lakh ton during April 2022.
Meanwhile, the Coal Ministry said that government-owned coal mining company Coal India has achieved the highest production of 534.7 lakh ton during April this year indicating 6.02 per cent growth. The previous highest ever production was recorded during April 2019, when it produced 450.29 lakh tonnes.
Coal India production had gone up by 4.43 per cent from 5960.24 lakh ton in 2020-21 to 6220.64 lakh ton during the fiscal 2021-22.
During the financial year 2021-22, the total coal production was 7,770.23 lakh ton (provisional) compared to 7,160 lakh ton during 2020-21, registering an 8.55 per cent.
Meanwhile, as several parts of the country face rampant power outages coupled with rising temperatures, Indian Railways has cancelled over 650 trains to ensure faster supply of coal to power plants.
The railway ministry has notified the cancellation of nearly 657 trips of mail and passenger trains till May 24. Over 500 of these trips are for long distance mail and express trains, while 148 trips for passenger rails. With this, the national transporter has raised the average daily loading of coal rakes to over 400, the highest ever in 5 years.
