Coal producton target raised to 383 MT for the current financial yea

New Delhi, July 26 (UNI) Coal production in our country is very complex in nature, where both men and machines are involved in different permutation and combinations, said Minister of State for Coal Dr Dasari Narayan Rao.

Addressing the consultative committee members attached to his ministry here today Dr Rao said Coal india Ltd (CIL) has elaborate procedures for reporting of coal production, measurement of stocks and dispatches. Given the range of operations involved, such measurement has both specific and volumetric components. The measurement may not bevery exact, but on the whole there are checks and balance to prevent any irrigularities, he added.

The Coal Minister said the CIL and its subsidiaries has been steadily increasing their production from 323 Million Tonnes (MT) in 2004-05 to about 362 MT during 2006-07 and we are now targeting a production of 383 MT during the current financial year.

He said with steady increase in production of coal, proper accounting of coal production and dispatches assumes importance.

He said the opencast mines are deploying heavy earth moving machines and larger opencast mines are having equipment with larger specifications. In case of opencast mines after removal of overburden, the exposed blocks of coal is blasted for transportation to coal handling plants or stock yards for transportation to the consumers.

The blast coal is transported through large size dumpers or trucks as the case may be in different mines. In some of the coal handling plants, the crushed coal is also weighed by belt weighing machines before they are sent to stock piles.

The Minister further informed that surveys are caried out regularly on weekly, fortnightly and monthly basis by by conducting field surveys of the volume extracted from the coal bed in the quarry.

UNI