CIL's coal stock increases to nearly 58 million tonnes: Piyush Goyal

State-owned CIL's coal stock has increased to 57.674 million tonnes (MT) as on April 1, 2016 mainly due to regulated lifting by power producers, Parliament was informed.

"Coal India has informed that closing stock of coal as on March 31, 2016 is 57.674 MT. During 2015-16, coal stock of CIL has increased by 4.205 MT from 53.469 MT as on April 1, 2015 to 57.674 MT as on April 1, 2016," Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

The increase in coal stock is mainly on account of regulated lifting by power utility sector in view of their comfortable coal stock position of 38.87 MT as on March 31, 2016, which is equivalent to 27 days' requirement, he said.

The minister further said that CIL has recently taken several measures to liquidate coal stocks which includes offering of coal to power utilities/independent power producers (IPPs) under special e-auction window at a reduced reserved price.

The other measures include supply under "as is where is" scheme for power utility sector consumers wherein coal is offered for lifting by consumers through their own logistics and exclusion of supply of higher grades of coal (G1 to G5) from calculation of performance incentives for all sectors and additional coal against import component being supplied to consumers consequent to enhanced production.