Self-sufficiency must to end coal import: Goyal tells CIL

The government had earlier set a target of 1 billion tonne of coal production by fiscal 2019-20 for the mining major. Coal India has announced a production aim of 652 million tonne in 2018-19.

"Our next step would be to revive the one billion tonne production aim of CIL as decided earlier," Goyal said.

India had imported 213 million tonne of coal in the last fiscal. "We cannot allow import of coal when we have huge reserves of 300 billion," Goyal said.

He also said the PSU major should reach 2.5 million tonne of dispatch per day by taking "sincere steps".

"We have huge challenges ahead of us to meet the demand for the vital product, particularly when the economic growth is rapid and demand for coal is increasing at a fast pace," the minister said.

"Even today, we (CIL) are growing at about 10 per cent and my fear is that rate of growth is not good enough. Very soon, we may slip to single-digit growth unless all of us collectively decide that we will not let that happen," he said here at the miner's 44th Foundation Day function.

Goyal said that in Thursday's Cabinet meeting, some of his ministry colleagues discussed issues related to Coal India, including that of throwing open coal mining to private players.

He called on the mining behemoth to maintain coal production even during the festive days, saying this is a critical phase.

The minister also sought to resolve problems of CIL subsidiary Eastern Coalfields Ltd relating to underground fire and rehabilitation, and meet the coking coal requirement of the iron and steel sector.