Recently, the union coal ministry and Coal India (CIL) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which set a target for the company to produce four per cent higher coal in 2013-14 at 482 million tonne (mn t) from the current fiscal.

It may be noted that for 2012-13, the coal ministry set a production target of 464.1 mn t. According to the MoU, CIL is given a target to achieve an offtake of 492 mn t, almost five per cent higher than the 2012-13 target of 470 mn t.

The company will require a growth rate of 7.11 per cent to meet the production target and 5.80 per cent to meet its off-take target next fiscal.

The off-take this fiscal till March 20 has been close to the target set by the Ministry last year, the release said.

As of March 20, coal off-take rose about 32 mn t, over same period last year, whereas the total increase in coal production over last year has been 18 mn t.

In order to achieve the target, CIL expects nearly 8.67 per cent growth in coal movement through the railways. Average growth of coal movement through the railways was around 5.21 per cent in the last four years, reports indicate.

For 2013-14, CIL said it would require 212.2 railway rakes a day on an annual basis, against the average availability of 184 rakes a day in 2012-13, to attain the targeted off-take in 2013-14.