Coal Minister asks Coal India to attain production targets

New Delhi: Union Minister of Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi said that together with the introduction of the latest IT-enabled technologies, the overall approach towards implementing the same in a sustained and efficient manner is the key to further enhancing coal production and supply. Inaugurating the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system implementation of Coal India Limited (CIL) in a function on February 23, Coal Minister Joshi recalled the effective use of IT tools by the Centre for the launch of the Jandhan Account under the able leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Minister Joshi pointed out that technology can ensure transparency and bring down corruption. He said that 42 coal blocks have been successfully auctioned so far by the Ministry of Coal under commercial auctioning of coal mines. The Minister complimented Coal India for successfully overcoming the recent challenges by ensuring sustained coal supply to the nation. He urged Coal India to attain coal production targets set for this and the next fiscal.

Minister Joshi emphasized the unique advantages of the ERP system launched. He said that the primary objective of the project is to position Coal India as a global player in the energy sector. The Minister added that ERP will establish best business practices, standardize and unify business processes across Coal India and its subsidiaries. Implementation of ERP across Coal India will give a boost to government endeavour towards Digital and New India, Minister Joshi added.

On the occasion, Minister Joshi along with Minister of State for Coal, Mines and Railways Raosaheb Patil Danve and Coal Secretary Dr Anil Kumar Jain released the book titled 'Fueling India's Energy Needs.' The book depicts the story of sustainable efforts made by the world's largest coal mining company, Coal India.

ERP is a great tool of information technology intervention, which will help CIL improve its business performance and growth with enhanced data integrity and cost-effectiveness. This will in turn help the national miner evolve as a global player. SAP ERP at CIL comprises of seven modules namely Human Capital Management (HCM), Sales and Distribution (SD), Production and Planning (PP), Plant Maintenance (PM), Project System (PS), Material Management (MM) and Finance & Control (FICO).

ERP in Coal India has been implemented in two phases. In the first phase, it was implemented at CIL Headquarters and two subsidiaries WCL and MCL, the Phase II implementation was in the remaining six subsidiaries SECL, NCL, CCL, ECL, BCCL and CMPDI. Tech Mahindra was the implementation partner for Phase – I whereas Accenture is the implementation partner for Phase – II. The project was scheduled to Go Live in 51 months while it has been completed 14.5 months earlier.

Ministry of Coal's Secretary Dr Anil Kumar Jain, Coal India's Chairman Pramod Agarwal and other senior functionaries of the Ministry and Coal India attended the function of ERP implementation pan Coal India.

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