Coal India has set for itself an ambitious 492 million tonne (MT) production target for the next fiscal even as the state-run firm is set to miss the current fiscal's 464 MT target by a whisker.

"Even this year, when the Planning Commission was setting the target for next year...We, in the Coal Ministry, had taken an additional five MT production. For Coal India, next year's target was supposed to be 487 MT, we have taken the target to 492 MT," Coal Secretary S K Srivastava said at an Assocham event here.

If the target for 2013-14 is met, CIL's move to burden itself with higher production would set an unprecedented example, particularly when missing targets has often become a norm for PSUs.

In fact, Srivastava said CIL would miss the 464 MT target for production for current fiscal by 2-3 MT attributing the shortfall to workers' resorting to strike and other issues.

"Strike and all that cumulatively took us 1.5 MT. We had a little bit of hiccups, but by and large, we should be able to achieve current year's production target. We should be off by 2-3 MT, not more than that," he said.

The additional five MT production that it plans to achieve compared to 487 MT set by Planning Commission would be allocated to the power sector and thus, the total supply to the coal-hungry sector would

go up to 377 MT from earlier 372 MT envisaged for the 2013-14 fiscal, he added.

Coal India hopes to annually produce 615 MT coal by the end of the current Plan Period (2012-17). The gap between the demand and domestic supply by that year is estimated to be 185 MT which is to be met through imports.

Srivastava said with a view to infuse competition in the coal sector, an exercise of restructuring of Coal India has been proposed to be taken up. For appointing consultants, the Coal Ministry has invited expression of interests from the interested parties.