NEW DELHI: State-owned Coal India Limited (CIL) plans to invest around Rs 1,900 crore in research and development (R&D) activities by FY30 as it steps up efforts to drive technological transformation and diversify into advanced energy technologies.
The company's R&D push gained momentum in FY25 with the establishment of the National Centre for Coal and Energy Research (NaCCER), a hub-and-spoke model for research and innovation. Since then, CIL has shifted its focus from proof-of-concept studies to prototype development corresponding to Technology Readiness Level (TRL)-4 and above.
"We intend to shift R&D to a higher orbit to drive the company's future growth and technological transformation," a senior CIL official said.
CIL's R&D expenditure rose four-fold to Rs 245 crore in FY25 from Rs 61 crore in FY24. The Department of Public Enterprises mandates central public sector enterprises to spend, on average, one per cent of the preceding three years' Profit Before Tax on R&D. To strengthen its innovation ecosystem, CIL has also formulated a comprehensive R&D policy.
As part of its industry-academia collaboration, the company has set up three Centres of Excellence (CoEs) at premier IITs—Centre of Clean Coal Energy and Net Zero (CLEANZ) at IIT Hyderabad, Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) at IIT Madras, and Innovation in Mining (IMiN) at Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad.
These centres function as research spokes under NaCCER and are engaged in pilot-scale research, prototype development and technology validation. CIL has committed Rs 253 crore, to be released in phases, for these Centres of Excellence.
Currently, 19 R&D projects with a total outlay of Rs 225 crore are being executed by leading scientific institutions under the direct oversight of NaCCER. In addition, 13 research projects involving pilot-scale research and prototype development are underway at the Centres of Excellence.
The research portfolio covers a wide range of strategic areas. CLEANZ is working on clean coal energy and net-zero technologies, including enhanced coal bed methane recovery, carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), mineral beneficiation, recovery of rare earth elements and critical minerals, high-ash coal gasification and syngas utilisation.
CIL has also entered into international collaborations with Canada's Ergo Exergy for an Underground Coal Gasification project at Eastern Coalfields Limited, Sweden's Ericsson for deployment of 5G technologies at the Jhanjra underground mine, and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) for collaborative research in advanced mining and energy technologies.