The Hindu Business Line : Coal India to import 4 m tons of coal

NEW DELHI: Coal India will import around four million tonnes of coal this year to meet the increasing demand of the power sector even as the company has planned to scale up its domestic production to 405 million tonnes, a top official of the PSU said on Friday.

“We will import around four million tonnes of coal to meet the growing demand of power producing companies,'' said the Coal India Ltd Chairman Mr Partha S Bhattacharyya on the sidelines of ICC Coal Summit here.

Last year, around 280 million tonnes were given to the power producing firms and this year their demand has shot up to about 293 million tonnes. The company has produced around 115 million tonnes in last five months for them and is quite confident to mee t their present need, he said.

“We are producing coal at a fast pace. We produced around 115 million tonnes of coal in past five months. In addition to it, we will give the power companies six million tonnes of coal more this fiscal,'' he said.

He, however, said, any power producing firm is free to import coal directly and added that CIL's move to import coal is to protect the interest of small producers. Moreover, the company will scale up its production to 405 million tonnes from present 381 million tons in this fiscal, a growth of over six per cent.

“We plan to grow at the rate of six per cent to produce around 405 million tons to meet the increasing demand of coal” Mr Bhattacharyya said. - PTI

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