Coal India to invest Rs 1.27 lakh crore to raise output, says Coal Minister Piyush Goyal

Coal India (CIL) will invest $20 billion (over Rs 1.27 lakh crore) to increase production to one billion tonne over the next five years.

Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday that the state-owned company has set a target to attain one billion tonne of coal production by 2019-20. "This would entail a ballpark investment of $20 billion," he said.

Goyal said that the money would be spent in technology, equipment and upgradation of the existing facilities.

"A part of it will also go towards setting up infrastructure for evacuation. The investment amount had been arrived at following a detailed mine-by-mine plan," he said, adding that the balance sheet of CIL was strong enough to support the capital expenditure programme.

The increase in production will be from the existing mines and also the new ones. Exuding confidence that the target is achievable, Goyal said that in the first 43 days of the current fiscal, there had been 11.1 per cent rise in production over the similar previous period.

During 2014-15, the increase in production was 32 million tonnes while during the four year period from 2010 to 2014, the production was lower at 31 million tonnes.

"The government would support this endeavour," he said, and urged all the stakeholders, including the state governments, for a shared responsibility. "This has to be achieved expeditiously in a time bound manner," Goyal said.