MCL asked to improve performance

Sambalpur: Coal India chairman AK Jha and Union additional secretary to Coal Ministry VK Tiwari jointly reviewed the performance of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) at a senior management-level meeting held here last evening.

Expressing his concern over the negative growth of MCL, the Chairman asked MCL to improve performance to enable Coal India meet its commitment of producing 20 lakh tonne dry fuel daily.

“Trends in mining projects, particularly in Talcher Coalfields, were not encouraging and MCL needs to improve on capacity utilization,” Jha said.

“We (Coal India) are committed to produce two million tonne coal per day from 1st of December,” Jha said, asserting that days and nights should be merged till 31st March 2020 to achieve the target.

“From November onwards the situation is conducive, hence, negative growth is not acceptable”, he said, adding that aim should be to achieve the target and stop imports of coal.

Conveying concern of government towards negative growth in production at MCL, Tiwari said, “You (MCL) are being watched under microscope.  I do hope that the review meeting would contribute to the rise in production.”

Performance of MCL, which had remained affected due to sporadic strikes and prolonged monsoon this year, has seen a rise in coal production after November 15 onward.

MCL CMD BN Shukla said, “With the cooperation from the state administration and resilience of employees, MCL is confident towards higher coal production and supply to meet the energy demand of the nation.”