DRI investigating over invoicing of imported coal: Goyal

Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) is investigating cases related to over invoicing of coal imported from Indonesia and supplied to power plants of state-run NTPC, Parliament was informed today.

"DRI has informed that it is investigating cases related to misdeclaration of value (over invoicing) of coal imported from Indonesia and supplied to power plants of NTPC", Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in Rajya Sabha.

He was replying a question "whether it is a fact that DRI has investigated a scam of over valuation of coal imports during 2011-2014?"

The minister further said, in 2014-15 (provisional) the country imported 212.11 million tonnes (MT) of coal worth Rs 1,04,524.1 crore.

In 2013-14, the country imported 166.860 MT of the dry fuel worth Rs 92,329.2 crore, in 2012-13 it was 145.785 MT (Rs 86,845.5 crore) and in 2011-12, the import stood at 102.853 MT (Rs 78,837.6 crore), the minister said.

In a separate reply, he further said that during 2014-15, the import of coal stood at 212.10 MT, which showed an increase of 27.1 per cent over the previous year.

In order to minimise the dependency on import of thermal coal, the government is focussing on increasing the domestic production of the fossil fuel which includes efforts to expedite green clearances.

Coal India, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production, has prepared a roadmap to enhance production by 2019-20.

"This includes capacity addition from new projects, use of mass production technologies and identification of existing ongoing projects with growth potential", he said.