Coal India in paradigm shift accelerates towards automated-based coal despatch and supply
New Delhi:
With a major strategic shift towards the quality improvement of domestic coal supply, the largest coal producing PSU, Coal India Ltd is progressively advancing for coal despatches through silo based mechanized loading system, integrated with Auto Mechanical Samplers. This purpose based on technological-driven endeavour ensures greater consistency in coal quality, setting aside human interface and significantly curtailing quality-related concerns of consumers. With major boost towards ensuring impartial, transparent, and credible determination of coal quality as mentioned under the provisions of the Fuel Supply Agreement, the PSU eases the sampling and testing through independent third-party sampling agencies.
There are currently 11 TPSAs are on board empanelled by Power Finance Corporation Ltd (PFCL) to carry out sampling and analysis at coal loading points of Coal India’s subsidiary companies where coal consumers have flexibility to select it.
The PSU firm has despatched about 375 Million Tonnes (MTs) of coal through rail mode which was sampled by TPSAs till December FY 2026 and half of the despatches were made through silos where the installed auto mechanical samplers ensured high standards of coal quality process control. And, Coal India is aiming to increase this quantity to around 80% in the current fiscal.
Based on coal quality sampling analysis provided by TPSAs and referee labs, CIL’s overall grade conformity has risen to 85% till December of the ongoing fiscal year as against 82% in previous year period.
The increased silo loading efforts by CIL are going to further scale up the conformity. CIL has also taken steps to introduce online analysis at two of its subsidiaries to obtain real-time quality assessment results. The move is aimed at further promoting the use of technology and transparency in the sampling.
CIL noted that Indian coal is naturally heterogeneous, and variations in coal grade can occur even within the same seam. As a result, gross calorific value may differ between samples taken from different locations. Despite this inherent variability, Coal India stated that the use of advanced technology in coal quality assessment remains a key focus area.