CIL to spend Rs 24,500cr on capex

Battling low production, the world's largest coal miner CIL today said it has earmarked Rs 24,500 crore capital expenditure over the next five years mainly to boost capacity and is also looking at spending another Rs 14,500 crore to augment rail infrastructure. "We have earmarked Rs 24,500 crore capital expenditure for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) mainly on developing more than 100 underground and opencast mines in seven coal producing subsidiaries," Coal India (CIL) Chairman S Narsing Rao told PTI.

The state-run company which accounts for over 80% of the domestic coal production also plans to set up 22 new washeries. It is also eyeing acquisition of assets abroad. Rao said apart from this, the PSU planned to undertake a conditional investment of Rs 14,500 crore on augmenting rail infrastructure. "We plan to spend Rs 7,500 crore on rail infrastructure provided the Railways complete the project on time.

We intend to spend another Rs 7,000 crore on rail projects for faster transportation of coal if all goes well," Rao said after attending the review meeting of the PSU, chaired by Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal. Earlier, Rao met Finance Minister P Chidambaram along with heads of nine infrastructure sector PSUs, who committed to step up investments. Rao said CIL was making all attempts to boost production and was hopeful of meeting the production target of 464 million tonnes (MT) for the current fiscal. He added that the Coal Minister, who chaired the review meeting, has exuded confidence that the PSU would meet the target. The cash-rich company would not require to raise any funds for financing the proposed capex, which would be funded entirely through internal accruals.