State-owned CIL on Sunday said that it produced 46.8 million tonnes (MT) of coal last month, registering a growth of 18.4 per cent. Coal India had produced 39.5 MT of coal in the corresponding month of the previous fiscal, it said in a statement. The increase in absolute terms was 7.4 MT, it said. With its production impeded by the COVID-19-induced slowdown during the first four months of the present fiscal, CIL started logging positive growth from August onward on monthly basis. For the first time in this fiscal, CIL posted a positive growth of 0.9 per cent in cumulative production till October so far. Production during April-October was 282.9 MT which was 2.5 MT more than that during the same period last year.
"Though the progressive growth in output was nominal, importantly we could wipe off the negative trend and now look forward to consolidate the positive pattern for the rest of the fiscal," a senior official of the company said. The decline in off-take growth for the year was arrested by more than half to 3.5 per cent in October from that of 7.6 per cent in the previous month, hopes to neutralise the negative growth and start on the path of recovery.
Indicating demand revival for the dry fuel, CIL posted a strong 25 per cent rise in coal off-take for October at 50.5 MTs. This represents a volume increase of 10.1 MT compared to 40.4 MT that the company supplied in the same month a year ago. All the subsidiary companies of CIL recorded growth in supplies. As the country's core sector output contraction narrowed sharply to 0.8 per cent in September 2020, growth in the coal sector was 21.2 per cent, the highest among all the eight core sector industries, compared to the same month last year. CIL's contribution was sizeable in this, it said.
Besides coal, only two other core sectors clocked positive growth during September. CIL accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal output.
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