Western Coalfields Ltd, a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd, has started the new financial year on a disappointing note by missing the coal production target for the month of April, 2104. WCL was able to produce only 3.678 MT of coal during April 2014 as against the target of 4 MT. During the month, the coal off-take was 3.667 million tonnes against the target of 4.13 million tonnes.
According to WCL, the company has failed to meet its targets in open cast mines mainly due to the poor performance of Hiring of Equipment (HoE) contractors at various projects. On the other hand, coal production at underground mines was affected due to the incidences of spontaneous heating or fire reduced the coal production at DRC-3&4, Saoner-III, and Mouri UG mines.
The offtake at the mines has also gone down drastically as many consumers have refused to take coal from various cost-plus mines. For example, there was accumulation of coal stock to the tune of more than one million tonne Gouri deep OC and Bellora-Naigaon OC mines as the consumers have backed down from taking coal from these mines due to the high price.
