Power producer NTPC expects coal import to jump 63 percent in FY2015

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's largest power producer, NTPC Ltd , will import about two-thirds more coal this fiscal year, its chairman said, as it looks to meet the country's growing power needs amid an acute shortage of coal in a sector hamstrung by scandals.

The state-run company's total coal requirement for the financial year ending March 2015 is estimated at 177 million metric tonnes (MMT), up from 158.57 MMT in the last fiscal year, Chairman Arup Roy Choudhury told shareholders on Wednesday.

The gap would largely be met by importing 17 MMT of coal, as against 10.39 MMT it imported in the previous fiscal, he said.

The country's top court on Monday ruled that allocations of over 200 coal blocks in India made since 1993 were arbitrary and illegal, stoking concerns that India may have to import vast amounts of coal to keep the lights on.

India's power producers are already reeling under major shortages of the fuel as state-run behemoth Coal India Ltd , the world's largest coal miner, has failed to raise output fast enough.

(Reporting by Aman Shah in Mumbai; Editing by Anand Basu)