India's coal production up 16.4% so far in 2022-23

India's overall coal production increased 16.39 per cent so far in the financial year 2022-23 to 607.97 million tonnes, official data showed on Tuesday.

During the same period of the last financial year, the output was 522.34 million tonnes.

State-owned Coal India reported coal production of 479.05 million tonnes up to December, as compared to 413.63 million tonnes during the same period of last year, representing an increase of 15.82%.

The Ministry of Coal has paved the way for releasing additional coal in the market by greater utilization of mining capacities of captive coal blocks which has led to an increase in production of coal by captive and other companies by 31.38% to 81.70 million tonnes so far in 2022-23 as compared to 62.19 million tonnes produced during the corresponding period of last year.

Besides, the Ministry of Coal's amendment of the Mineral Concession (Amendment) Rules, 1960 under MMDR (Amendment) Act, 2021 to allow the lessee of captive mines to sell coal or lignite up to 50 per cent of the total excess production after meeting the requirement of the end-use plants also seemed to have borne fruit.

"The Ministry is taking steps to augment rail connectivity infrastructure for all major mines under PM Gati Shakti to ensure faster evacuation. As a result, the total coal despatch has been to the tune of 637.51 MT during Apr-Dec'22 as compared to 594.22 MT during the same period of FY 22 representing a growth of 7.28 % which shows a steady and efficient amount of coal despatch to various sectors across the nation," a Ministry of Coal statement said.

With an objective to enhance the coal production capacity, it has put 141 new coal blocks for commercial auction and has been engaging regularly with various coal companies in the country and monitoring their production.

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