Major Rise In Coal Use Over Years In India: Govt Tells Parliament
The total coal consumption in the year 1983-84 was 130.73 MT in comparison to 1115.02 MT in the year 2022-23 with a growth of around 753 per cent, said Union Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi in a written reply in Lok Sabha.
He said that to address the issues of coal supplies, representatives from Ministries such as Power, Coal, Railways, Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Coal India (CIL) and Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) meet regularly to take various operational decisions to enhance the supply of coal to thermal power
"Plants as well as for meeting any contingent situations relating to the power sector including alleviating critical coal stock position in power plants," Joshi said.
As per the existing import policy, coal is kept under open general license (OGL) and consumers are free to import coal from the source of their choice as per their contractual agreement on payment of applicable duty.
He mentioned that most of the requirement for coal in the country is met through indigenous production. "The focus of the government is on increasing domestic production of coal and eliminating non-essential import of coal," he added.
In the year 2022-23, coal production increased by about 14.77 per cent over the previous year. During the current year till July 2023, domestic coal production has increased by over 9.2 per cent compared to the same period of last year.
Joshi added that domestic coal production is estimated to increase to more than one billion tonne (BT) in the current year 2023-24.
The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has reported that the receipt of domestic coal has increased to the power sector from 569.5 million tonnes (MT) during 2019-20 to 731.7 MT during 2022-23 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.6 per cent.
Further, from April to June 2023, coal import by the power sector decreased to the level of 14.21MT as compared to 16.36MT during the corresponding period of last year.
As per the Daily Coal Report (DCR) of the CEA, the coal stock available as on 5 August 2023 at the Thermal Power Plant (TPP) stood at 32.09 MT, which is sufficient for around 16 days.
