Prime Minister asks Coal Ministry to increase domestic coal production

05 Dec 2013 Evaluate

Amid rising concerns over the low domestic coal production, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Coal Ministry to increase the coal production from state-owned Coal India (CIL). The Prime Minister has organised a meeting on December 3 on domestic coal production and discussed various coal issues including declining domestic coal production and production of fossil fuel. India’s coal production declined by 3.9% in October, 2013 on y-o-y basis. On cumulative basis, growth during April-October, 2013-14 was increased marginally by 1.3% over the same period of previous year. 

Despite the world's fifth largest in terms of reserves and third-largest producer of coal, India's domestic output has failed to keep pace with demand over the past few years. Presently, the Coal India (CIL) is the only producer of domestic coal accounting for around 80 percent of the domestic production.  At present, CIL is struggling to meet domestic coal requirement. CIL has recently noted that its production target of 482 million tonne (MT) coal for the current fiscal looks challenging in view of the shutdown of mining activities in Talcher Coalfields in Odisha, and Cyclone Phailin.

Indian domestic coal demand is around 35 percent higher than domestic supply, resulting into a high deficit of which a huge part is being met by costly imports from Indonesia, South Africa and Australia. In the previous fiscal, India imported $16 billion worth of coal. Acute coal shortages in the country has become primary reason for power deficit in the country as coal-fired plants account for 68% of India's installed electricity capacity.

In order to meet India’s growing coal demand, the government has planned to invite bids from private players to start coal mining in a public-private partnership (PPP) mode in the country, which would also end the monopoly of public sector unit Coal India. The government is likely to auction 10 coal blocks in the month of March next year.

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