MUMBAI: India will save Rs 30,000 crore in 2015-16 by cutting down on coal imports as domestic production has picked up, coal secretary Anil Swarup said. The government is aiming to completely eliminate the import of the kind of coal that is available domestically, he added.
Coal India, the state-run company that is the largest coal producer in the country, plans to double its production to 1 billion tonne by 2020. In the current year through March, it would have scaled up production to 550 million tonne which is likely to increase to 600 million tonne next year.
"Imports have already started coming down. This year, imports are already down by 16% resulting in savings of Rs 22,000 crore so far. We would probably save Rs 30,000 crore by the end of this year," Swarup told ET on the sidelines of the Edelweisss India Conference.
Typically, Indian coal is almost 40% cheaper than imported coal. So far, India has been importing coal as Coal India was unable to match growing demand.
"We will eliminate import of such quality of coal which is available in India in two years," he said. Power plants in the coastal areas are designed to run on high-grade coal, which has higher calorific value and low ash content as compared with the local coal and, to that extent, the country would continue to import this grade of coal. Of the total 212 million tonne of coal imported last year, around 30-40 million tonne were of the quality that is not available locally. "We have so far focused on increasing quantity and its showing results.
Now, the focus is on improving quality of coal. We want to ensure only crushed coal moves out of mines and from January 1st, it has already started happening. This ensures that power plants don't receive coal with high amount of stones as they did in the past," Swarup said.
The ministry has also set up a mechanism for third-party coal sampling to avoid slippages and has pushed for setting up 15 coal washeries to ensure quality.
Swarup said of the 29 mines that were in production were de-allocated and then bid out, 10 have started production again. "These 10 mines are producing 8 million tonne so far. Other mines had issues and some are in court. But we are hopeful that over two-three months, other mines will also start (production)."
Swarup said the power ministry's Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana initiative will benefit power distributors, increase power demand and subsequently boost coal production.
Source :economictimes.indiatimes.com
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