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Informist, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026

 

By Avishek Rakshit

 

KOLKATA – Coal India Ltd., which is eyeing 1 billion tonnes of coal production by March 2030, plans to scale up production from its underground mines significantly by targeting an increase in the yield from such mines to 70 million tonnes by March 2030 from the current output of 25 million tonnes.

 

"Twenty-five million tonne underground production is coming up right now, but we have got some concrete plans. By (the financial year) 2029-30, we plan to take it to the level of 70 million tonnes, and this will come through introduction of mass production technology," B. Sairam, chairman and managing director at Coal India Ltd., said in response to a shareholder's query at the company's 52nd annual general meeting.

 

At present, Coal India uses load, haul, dump mining technology in its underground mines, which uses specialised, low-profile, centre-articulated vehicles to excavate, transport, and discharge ore or waste material in underground hard rock and coal seams. The Maharatna company also uses heavy earth-moving equipment, which is highly manoeuvrable and specifically engineered to operate in confined spaces with low ceilings such as underground mines. However, these technologies are considered outdated in the current global mining technology ecosystem and result in low yield from such mines.

 

Over the past decades, Coal India has turned its focus to opencast mining technology and shut underground mines due to technical constraints. However, most of the higher quality coal is found in underground mines, and these mines also require lower land area, resulting in lower ecological displacement. Since its listing in 2010, land acquisition and environmental clearances have been the toughest challenges for Coal India.

 

Coal India officials maintain that after the outbreak of war in West Asia and the resulting global macroeconomic challenges, energy security is a key focus for any government. As 70% of India's power production is based on thermal energy, which is derived by burning coal, production and availability of high-grade coal have become crucial, which explains Coal India's renewed focus on increasing output from underground mines.

 

"We will go for continuous miners and long-wall and some high-wall mining (modern mining technologies) will also take place," Sairam said. "Together, all these things and introduction of MDO (mine developer and operator), more and more MDO into underground scheme of things, we plan to make it to the level of 70 million tonne in coming 4-5 years." For the past five financial years, Coal India's production from its underground mines has always been in the range of 25-26 million tonnes.

 

Mass production technologies have expanded significantly across Coal India's underground mines. After the conclusion of the annual general meeting, a company official said long-wall mining technology is currently operational at Moonidih and Jhanjra coalfields in Jharkhand, and additional high-wall mining projects are under implementation in these mines as well to increase productivity. Also, 26 out of its 121 underground mines currently use continuous mining technology and 64 man-riding systems are in place. These technologies improve mine productivity.

 

However, with a capacity utilisation of 77%, underground mines have lower productivity than opencast mines, which have 88?pacity utilisation. Underground mines roughly comprise a little over 3% of Coal India's annual production but fetch far more revenue than the production from opencast mines.

 

While the world's largest coalminer is eyeing 1 billion tonnes of coal production by March 2030, it needs to step up production both from opencast and underground mines to meet the objective, according to an internal company document accessed and reviewed by Informist earlier. Coal India plans to have 29 mine developers and operators across a similar number of mines to produce over 254 million tonnes of coal by 2030 to achieve the goal of 1 billion tonnes of coal yield. While 17 such mines, which will produce coal under the mine developer and operator contract, will be opencast, 12 are underground mines.

 

Monday, shares of Coal India ended at INR 401.75 on the National Stock Exchange, up slightly from Friday.  End

 

 

Edited by Himanshi Gupta

 

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