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| Photo Credit: G.N. Rao

India’s coal production grew at a 16-month high pace of 18.6% in October to 78.65 million tonnes (MT), with despatches to end-users like the power sector rising 18.1% to an even higher figure of 79.3 MT.

October’s coal production numbers released by the Coal Ministry on November 3 mark the fourth successive month of double-digit growth and the strong offtake from pitheads to end-use industries indicates electricity generation growth also remained robust in last month.

Coal output had risen 16.1% in September while electricity generation rose 9.3%. The two infrastructure sectors have a combined weightage of 30.2% in the Index of Core Industries or ICI, which had grown at a four-month low pace of 8.1% in September.

The cumulative coal production between and April and October 2023 has increased 13.05% to reach 507.02 MT, compared to 448.49 MT over the same period last year, the ministry said.