Coal Import by power sector decline to 22.73 MT during April 2021-January 2022

24 Mar 2022 , 03:21 PM

Due to the increased availability of coal on account of policy measures taken to increase domestic coal production, total coal import declined from 248.54 MT in 2019-20 to 215.25 MT in 2020-21. Further, during April 2021-January 2022, coal import has further decreased to the level of 173.32 MT as compared to 180.56 MT during the corresponding period of the previous year, as per Ministry of Coal.

Coal import by the Power sector declined from 69.22 MT in 2019-20 to 45.47 MT in 2020-21.

Further, during April 2021-January 2022, coal import by Power Sector has decreased to the level of 22.73 MT as compared to 39.01 MT during the corresponding period of the previous year.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

The share of coal supply by CIL, which was around 60.8% of the total consumption of coal in 2019-20, increased to 63.3% in 2020-21 and further to 64.3% in 2021-22 (April- January 2022).

An Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) has been constituted in the Ministry of Coal for the purposed of coal import substitution. The representatives from Ministry of Power, Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Shipping, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Steel, Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT), Central Electricity Authority (CEA), coal companies and Ports are members of this IMC.

This Committee provides a platform for discussions on a larger forum with the Administrative Ministries so as to guide them to encourage the coal consumers of their respective sectors to eliminate imports of coal. On the directions of the IMC, an Import Data System has been developed by the Ministry of Coal to enable the Ministry to track the imports of coal.

The Annual Contracted Quantity (ACQ) of power plants has been increased upto 100% of the normative requirement, in the cases where the ACQ was reduced to 90% of normative requirement (non-coastal) or where the ACQ was reduced to 70% of normative requirement (coastal power plants).

The increase in ACQ would ensure the supply of more domestic coal to the power plants.

In addition to the above, some other measures like Introduction of Facility of Usance LC (Letter of Credit) payment mechanism to help the consumer avail credit facility from the bank and Special Spot auction scheme for coal importers including the traders, have been introduced to help curtail the imports of coal.