Power sector PSUs to follow ‘zero coal imports’ policy from next fiscal

In order to bring down coal imports at a faster rate, government said that power sector public sector units (PSUs) will follow 'zero coal imports' policy from the next fiscal onwards, this will also boost domestic coal production. The government has also set a target to produce 1.5 billion tonnes of coal domestically by 2020. Coal Ministry Secretary Anil Swarup has said that in the power sector, there will be zero coal imports by all the public sector entities by March 31 of this fiscal year and there will be no imports thereafter.

The Coal Secretary said that this year, they should be able to reduce imports by 15 million tones, as they have done a detailed analysis of how to handle imports and the strategy related to both power and non-power sector. Further, on private sector he said that to discourage coal imports by private sector, they are increasing the amount of coal which is available through e-auction. Since, e-auction prices have come down, the coal is available at a much cheaper rate. He added that with the firming up of international prices, chances increase that this coal (coal available through e-auction) would be picked up.

Regarding commercial mining, Swarup said the ministry is going in steps. The first steps have already been taken through allocations of coal mines to state governments. But in terms of offering mines to private sector for commercial purposes, he said the ministry is ‘working towards it’. He said that there has been a paradigm shift in the problem from a phase of supply shortage to a phase of demand shortage and this demand shortage was due to low generation of the generation companies at Plant Load Factor (PLF) not more than 59-60 percent. In a demand shortage scenario, the inventory benchmark for the power plants has come down to 15 days from 20-25 days and this has happened because coal is available.