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Tyre shortage hits CIL

Indrani Dutta

Tender for tyres floated by Coal India evokes poor response

KOLKATA: Rains and poor labour productivity have played havoc with Coal India's (CIL) dreams of realising a higher production target. But this time round, flat tyres are threatening to put paid to CIL's plans of exceeding the 343 million tonnes target set.

Sources said that CIL was hopeful of exceeding the target by eight million tonnes. As things stand now, it might be able to produce about 346 million tonnes. CIL, constantly under pressure to match the power sector's hunger for fossil fuel through higher output, produced 323 million tonnes of raw coal in 2004-05 against a target of 314 million tonnes.

Global shortage of tyres for the heavy equipment used in the coal industry was creating difficulties. This happened even as Coal India was trying to make up for the loss in production due to the heavy monsoons at Western Coalfields and then labour problem at the Mahanadi Coalfields where two mines were closed between September 1 and 4.

Sources told The Hindu that operations that were being particularly affected were overburden removal, a crucial operation in opencast mining practised in two CIL subsidiaries — Northern Coalfields and South Eastern Coalfields. Sources said that these tyres, used in dumpers were mostly imported from Goodyear and Michelin. Some of these companies were booked till 2007, sources said, adding that a global tender for buying these tyres, floated by CIL evoked poor response. The requirement of these tyres varied according to the dumper capacity but was the maximum for the 85-tonne dumper.

Team for U.S., Japan

A team has now been constituted by the Union Coal Ministry to scout for sources for these tyres. Countries which are to be visited are: Japan, the U.S., Belarus and Germany which has some facility for retreading old tyres. The team comprises CIL CMD, two directors from the two coal-producing companies and a Joint Secretary of the Coal Ministry.

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