Coal India should aim to provide electricity at just price: Chairman

State-owned CIL chief Pramod Agrawal has said that the coal behemoth should aim at providing electricity to the county at "just price" as 80 per cent of the company's supplies is directed towards coal-based power plants.

Coal India (CIL) accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal supply and three quarters of the country's power generation is coal-based.

In a recent message to its employees, Agrawal who is the chairman and managing director of CIL said that "our role is to supply assured energy at affordable costs".

Stating that as there is a sizeable scope for energy expansion in the country for the next few decades, he said that the company has a greater responsibility to shoulder.

"Aim for even loftier heights in the last quarter of the financial year and make FY23 momentous by shattering the annual targets as well. And, not rest there. Once we achieve 700 MT production target that should be a benchmark base for further growth," he said.

Agrawal asked the employees to make a concerted effort in meeting the country's energy and developmental goals with unrelenting commitment.

"All the three performance parameters -- production of 479 MTs (million tonnes), supplies of 508 MTs and OBR of 1,155 M, Cu.M, till December, were ahead of the respective progressive targets. What makes this milestone special is the formidable scale of targets, which we were able to breach. However, much more needs to be done," the message said.

CIL will achieve 1 billion tonnes of coal production target by 2025-26 as against the earlier timeline of 2023-24 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coal output by CIL in current financial year is expected to be 700 MT and there would be additional output of 200 MT from other sources, the coal ministry had earlier said.