India imports 1,116 million tonnes of coal in past 5 years

India has been facing a coal shortage, which led to power outages in many states during the peak of summer in the past two years.

By Express News Service

NEW DELHI:  India imported nearly 1116.32 million tonnes of coal in past five years, said coal minister Pralhad Joshi on Wednesday. This year, the total quantum of coal imported from January 2022 to September 2022 is 179.95 million tonnes.

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“As per the current import policy, coal is kept under Open General Licence (OGL) and consumers are free to import coal from the source of their choice as per their requirement and commercial consideration. The Government of India doesn’t interfere in this matter,” said Joshi in a written reply to Lok Sabha.  

India has been facing a coal shortage, which led to power outages in many states during the peak of summer in the past two years. Therefore, to meet the coal demand, India had to increase its coal export. In 2022, the government assigned Coal India Limited (CIL) to import coal for blending purposes on behalf of thermal power plants (TPP) of state GENCOs and independent power plants (IPP). Coal India imported about 3.58 lakh tonnes of coal on behalf of TPPs of State GENCOs and IPPs after January, 2022.