22 mt coal auctioned in non-regulated space till Oct in FY17

Around 22 million tonnes of coal linkages have been auctioned till October in the ongoing fiscal for the non-regulated sector, including cement and sponge iron.
"In the non-regulated sector, which includes cement, sponge iron, captive, power plant and others, there has been a linkage auction of 22.14 mtpa (million tonnes per annum) in 2016-17 (till October 2016) under the policy of linkage auction," Minister of State for Coal, Power, New and Renewable Energy and Mines Piyush Goyal said in a reply to the Lok Sabha.
There is an increase of about 10 mtpa in coal linkage to the non-regulated sector, the minister said.

The minister further said the coal-based generation as well as consumption of coal have been consistently increasing during preceding years. However, the government is now focusing on capacity addition of renewable energy sources to meet the demand and reduce dependence on coal for generation of electricity.
"As per the initial estimate, coal demand for 2016-17 has been assessed to be 884.87 mt of which 598.73 mt has been assessed to be the coal demand of power utility sector, 91.11 mt for captive power, 34.37 mt for cement, 24.05 mt for sponge iron and 80 mt for others," he added.