The Planning Commission is likely to set a coal production target of 574.4 million tonnes for the next financial year 2012-13. The decision was taken in a preliminary meeting held in the Planning Commission recently.

In the meeting it was also decided that the production target for Coal India would be at 464.10 million tonnes for 2012-13.

Official said that "The coal production target for Singareni Collieries Company was set at 53.10 million tonnes. As far as captive coal blocks are concerned the government think tank has set a production target of 39.2 million tonnes and 18 million tonnes from other sources.”

CIL, which accounts for over 80% of the domestic coal production, has lowered its production target for current financial year to 440 million tonnes from the estimate of 452 million tonnes in its annual plan.

The company cited various reasons like heavy rainfall, strike and delays in the grant of forestry and environmental clearances to coal projects for the downward revision in the production target.

Earlier, CIL had asked the government to scale down its production target for the 2011-12 to 448 million tonnes, fearing it will not be able to make up for the slippage in output in the first half of the fiscal.

CIL had a production target of 460.5 million tonnes for 2010-11, which was revised down to 440.

(Sourced from ET)