The Telegraph reported that Coal India Limited’s Dhanbad based subsidiary Bharat Coking Coal Limited coking coal production has picked up in July and is expected to rise to about 29 to 30 million tonnes in August, marking a swift turnaround after a downturn during the first quarter of the new financial year 2020-21 due to lockdown and resultant lack of demand.

Bharat Coking Coal Limited Chairman cum Managing Director PM Mr Prasad Talking to The Telegraph Online, Prasad said “The monsoon has not impacted the coal production much, the impact was more due to the lockdown as only only 10 million tonne of coal destpatch took place during the month of April.

The situation slightly improved in May with some of the industries opening up and the process of gradual increase in production and despatch continued in June which finally rose to around 19 million tonnes during July making it almost double of that of April.”

He said “We are expecting the total despatch to increase to around 29 to 30 million tonne as the per day despatch is inching towards 2 million tonne. We are expecting the situation to further improve by next month when per day despatch is expected to reach around 2.8 million tonne per day.”

Asked about the impact of monsoon on production and despatch, Mr Prasad said, “Around 40 per cent rains out of total 1000-1100 mm of rains, which takes place in area, has already taken place so we are expecting the remaining part of monsoon to not significantly affect the production as we are continuously monitoring the situation through area-level control rooms as well as the control room at the BCCL headquarter.”