Coal Ministry to allocate 27 more mines

The coal ministry said today that it has issued directions to Nominated Authority to allocate 27 more mines to sectors including steel and cement.

Under Coal Mines Special Provision Act, 2015, 84 coal mines have already been allocated, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said.

"Further, directions have been issued to the Nominated Authority for allocation of 27 more coal mines," he said in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.

Giving the breakup of 27 coal blocks, he said that "6 coal mines for the end use Production of Iron and Steel, 13 coal mines (are) for the end-use 'iron & steel, cement and captive power plants...2 coal mines for state government company or corporation for sale of coal, 6 coal mines for the purpose of own consumption for power".

The minister further said that state-owned Coal India Ltd and its subsidiaries have planned 15 greenfield projects having peak rated capacity of 104.8 million tonnes per year.

"There is a gap between demand and domestic supply of coal which cannot be bridged completely as there is insufficient availability of coking coal and power plant designed on imported coal will continue to import coal for their production, he said.

However, for the fiscal 2018-19, Power Ministry has projected annual domestic coal requirement 615 million tonnes (MT).

This requirement is being met by supply of coal from domestic sources. Due to these efforts of enhanced domestic coal supply to power plants, the coal import by power plants has reduced from 80.58 MT in 2015-16 to 56.41 MT in 2017-18, he added.