South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Coal India Limited, has filed its draft red herring prospectus with the market regulator SEBI to launch an initial public offering.
The issue will be entirely an offer for sale. Parent Coal India will sell up to 66.81 crore equity shares, each with a face value of Rs 2. SECL itself will get no money from the offering, as all proceeds will go to Coal India as the selling shareholder.
How the IPO will be structured
The issue will be run through the book-building process. No more than 50% of the net offer is set aside for qualified institutional buyers. Non-institutional investors will get at least 15%, and retail individual investors at least 35%.
SBI Capital Markets, ICICI Securities, IDBI Capital Markets & Securities and Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors are the book-running lead managers. KFin Technologies is the registrar. The shares are proposed to be listed on both the BSE and NSE.
Financial performance
For the six months ended September 30, 2026, SECL’s revenue from operations rose to Rs 16,593.7 crore from Rs 15,090.2 crore a year earlier. Net profit climbed to Rs 2,174.3 crore from Rs 1,140.9 crore.
For FY26, revenue stood at Rs 32,956.5 crore, up from Rs 29,998.3 crore in FY25. Net profit rose to Rs 4,754.5 crore from Rs 4,540.4 crore.
One of India’s biggest coal producers
Incorporated in 1985 and headquartered in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, SECL holds Miniratna Category-I status, conferred on March 15, 2007. It completed 40 years of coal mining in 2025.
According to CRISIL, the company produced 176.29 million tonnes of coal in FY26, or 16.94% of India’s total output. That was 5.25% higher than the 167.49 million tonnes produced in FY25, the fastest growth among Coal India’s subsidiaries in that period.
SECL is the second-largest coal-producing subsidiary of Coal India, contributing 22.95% of the parent’s production in FY26.
Resources and reserves
As of April 1, 2026, SECL had geological coal resources of about 47.55 billion tonnes, around 11.50% of India’s total. About 10.93 billion tonnes of this had been projectised, according to the DMT and CRISIL reports.
Its audited coal reserves were 4.61 billion tonnes on the same date. At the FY26 production rate, that is enough for about 26 years of operations.
Mines and operations
SECL’s Gevra and Kusmunda opencast mines in the Korba coalfield of Chhattisgarh are among the largest in the world. In FY26, CRISIL ranked them second and fourth globally by production capacity. Gevra was also recognised as Asia’s largest and the world’s second-largest coal mining operation by production.
As of September 30, 2026, the company ran 53 producing mines, 19 opencast and 34 underground, across 13 operating areas in the Korba, Mand-Raigarh and Central India coalfields. Its coalfields in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh allow it to supply non-coking coal to customers across northern, western and central India.
Opencast mines contributed 91.76% of production in the six months ended September 30, 2026. This compares with 92.69% a year earlier, and 93.64%, 92.91% and 93.61% in FY26, FY25 and FY24 respectively.
The company is also expanding mechanised mining. Output from continuous miners rose 38.65% to 5.13 million tonnes in the six months ended September 30, 2026, from 3.70 million tonnes a year earlier.
Land and logistics
SECL holds about 59,022.44 hectares of land, or 590.22 square kilometres, across Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. Its mining rights cover about 126,529.81 hectares. These include perpetual rights acquired under the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act, 1957, and 39 mining leases granted under the Mineral Concession Rules, 1960. The remaining land is mainly used for housing and related infrastructure.
For moving coal, SECL relies on rail links through the South East Central Railway zone, dedicated Merry-Go-Round systems and belt conveyors that connect mines to pithead power stations. Rail corridors being developed through its subsidiaries are also expected to help.
Roads matter too. In FY26, road dispatch was 66.65 million tonnes, or 37.31% of total coal dispatch.
The company says it has also taken steps to reduce its environmental footprint.
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