Increasing demand for coal in the country will force Indian buyers to import more coal in 2013-2014 as domestic supply will not match total requirement.
During the year 2012-13, nearly 110.43 MnT of coal has been imported till January, 2013 (i.e. April, 2012 – January, 2013). Total imports in 2012-2013 (April'12-March'13) will land somewhere in between 125-130 million tons as per Indian custom data.
The coal demand for the year 2013-14 is estimated at 769.69 MnT and the total all India coal production has been planned as 604.55 MnT (including captive). Thus the gap estimated of 165.14 MnT of coal will need to be met through imports, said coal ministry addressing parliamentary session.
The Minister said, the Union Government has envisaged that one of the ways forward to reduce the dependence on imports is to devise a Public Private Partnership (PPP) policy framework with CIL as one of the partners in order to increase the production of coal for supply to power producers and other consumers. This was announced in the Union Budget 2013-14 on February 28, 2013. Pursuant to the aforesaid announcement, the Ministry of Coal has set up a Committee to devise a PPP Policy framework with CIL as one of the partners in order to increase production of coal. The Committee has since had its first meeting and deliberated on various models.
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