Govt may import 210 mn tonnes of coal in 2015-16

Govt data pegs all-India assessed coal demand at 910 mn tonne

Seeking to bridge the demand-supply gap, the government is likely to import around 210 million tonnes (mn tonne) of coal in the ongoing fiscal.

"In the Annual Plan for 2015-16, all-India coal demand has been assessed to be 910 mn tonne against which supplies from indigenous sources have been planned at 699.97 mn tonne... With a shortfall of 210.03 mn tonne which is envisaged to be met through imports by consuming sectors," recent government data showed.

Stating the reasons for gap in demand and supply, it said, is the limited availability of requisite quantity and quality of the fossil fuel and constrained growth in indigenous coal availability and infrastructural and operational bottlenecks in coal transportation in major coal bearing states of Jharkhand and Odisha.

Of the total supplies of 699.97 mn tonne, 550 mn tonne is likely from Coal India, 56 mn tonne from Singareni Collieries Company Ltd and 93.97 mn tonne from others, including captive coal blocks, the government data said.

State-owned Coal India, which accounts for over 80% of the domestic coal output, missed the production target for 2014-15 by 3%, recording an output of 494.23 mn tonne.

The company's output target was 507 mn tonne for the last fiscal.

The government may set a target of 550 mn tonne coal output for Coal India in the current fiscal. It has also set an ambitious target of raising the output of state-owned Coal India to one billion tonnes by 2019-20.