The Indian government might have set producer Coal India Limited (CIL) a production target of one-billion tonnes a year by 2019, but the miner has yet to pull the trigger on 27 projects with combined reserves of 1.2-billion tons.

The reasons for these projects not being able to come into production ranged from delays in obtaining statutory clearances, land acquisition, contract signings with mine developer operators (MDOs) and lack of infrastructure, Coal Minister Piyush Goel informed Parliament in early December.

Five of the largest projects delayed were in the eastern Indian provinces of West Bengal, while a further three were in Jharkhand, four in Odisha and eight in the western province of Maharashtra, the Minister said.

He said that 178 coal blocks allocated to various user industries for captive mining had also not started production as statutory clearances were still pending.

However, despite a dismal record, the Coal Ministry launched an exercise in early December, led by the Ministry’s secretary, Anil Swarup, to draw up a ‘mine wise’ plan to ramp up CIL’s production to the one-billion-tonne-a-year mark by 2019.

In an interactive session with top CIL executives and industry representatives, Swarup said that government would soon establish a platform for monitoring pending clearances for each mining project.

He said that, in addition to the forthcoming auction of the 74 coal block mining licences that had been cancelled by the Supreme Court, the government would shortly put another 18 blocks up for competitive bidding, which would add another 100-million tonnes a year of production, once these 18 mines went into production.

On analysis of the first lot of 74 coal blocks scheduled for auction starting February 2015, it was found that there were an insufficient number of coal blocks suitable for use for captive mining by thermal power companies, which resulted in 18 more blocks being added to the list.
The coal blocks would be announced shortly.

Meanwhile, Western Coalfields Limited (WCL), a wholly owned operational subsidiary of CIL, has sought a special arrangement under which it would be able to charge a higher price for certain grades of coal than the benchmark CIL pricing.

WCL has argued that a higher price arrangement would enable the miner to undertake projects which were otherwise unviable and increase production to 60-million tonnes a year by 2019, up from about 45-million-tonne-a-year target by 2016.