India won't need to import dry fuel by 2017 apart from the need to meet the requirements of the power plants located near coastal area. Minister for Coal, Power and New & Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal while releasing the India’s report titled ‘The Rising Sun - Disruption on the horizon’ at ENRich 2015 has said that India should not need to import coal except for those coastal plants where it is very difficult to transmit coal and said that he was fairly confident the era of shortages is over.
Further Goyal said that the government is looking at complete ability to exchange coal or to swap coal, complete synergy in the power and coal sectors so that coal is used most efficiently by the most efficient power plants at the nearest location and power is transmitted rather than coal in their next level of UDAY. Besides, he stressed that the renewable energy capacity target of 175 GW by 2022, is not only doable but necessary also in view of energy security of the country.
Falling for the fourth consecutive month Coal imports declined in October by 5.1 per cent to 14.52 million tonnes (MT) over same month year ago. In September the imports of dry fuel dropped by 27.16 per cent to 12.6 MT on rise in domestic production. Last fiscal India imported 212.103 million tonnes of coal worth over Rs 1 lakh crore. Besides, the government is eyeing to achieve 1.5 billion tonnes of coal production by 2020.
The minister also said that with launch of discoms revival schemes UDAY, REC and PFC can lend $20 billion for areas like transmission, renewables etc. besides, he also assured that his ministry will contribute in the country’s holistic development by ensuring speed to the wheels of progress through energy security.