The world’s largest coal producer Coal India Ltd (CIL) is considering setting up power plants for effective use of the stockpiles of coal at its mine.
“We may set up power plants if stockpiles keep on rising. Currently, stockpiles stands at 53 million tonnes,” said company’s CMD Partha S Bhattacharyya on the sidelines of a conference in the capital..
Coal India, which is going to launch its IPO in the second half of October, is already in pact with state-owned NTPC to set up two 2,000 MW power plants in Jharkhand.

“The inventory is rising mainly due to shortage of railway wagons,” Bhattacharyya added. On an average Coal India needs around 210 wagons per day but the firm was getting only 170 wagons per day.

In the last fiscal, the 100 per cent government-owned firm produced 431.5 million tonnes of coal meeting the requirement of use industries like power. The Centre is diluting its 10 per cent stake in the upcoming IPO, which is expected to raise Rs 12,000-15,000 crore.

To meet the rising coal requirement of power major NTPC, Coal India said it will soon come out with a tender to import the raw material for the power PSU.

“We will float the tender in next few months to import six million tonnes of coal for NTPC,” Bhattacharyya added. The country’s overall coal output during 2009-10 stood at about 532 million tonnes while consumption was over 600 million tonnes.

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