Coal India targets production at lesser cost than private sector

Kolkata, March 30: Coal India Ltd (CIL) is focusing on reducing its production cost by improving productivity and efficiency and remains optimistic to be competitive even as the Central government is allowing commercial coal mining for the private sector, its chief said on Friday.

CIL is planning to increase its capital expenditure to Rs 9,500 crore in 2018-19 to strengthen its production capacity, Chairman and Managing Director Gopal Singh told reporters here.

"Allowing commercial mining is an opportunity for us. We have been the market leader and will remain so. We have been focusing on reducing cost and improving productivity and efficiency," he said.

"Our target is to produce coal at a lesser cost than that of the commercial miners," he said, adding the state-run miner achieved 10.9 per cent growth in its profit before tax during October-December period of current fiscal as because it managed to reduce cost of production by Rs 52 per tonne.