Ranchi MP questions on India’s Coal Production
27/03/2021, Ranchi (HS)In the past three years, there has been a tremendous increase in the production of different areas of coal across the country and in the coming years the Government of India is emphasizing on increasing the production of coal and minimizing imports. The Union Minister of Mines and Coal Pralhad Joshi informed this in the Lok Sabha today.
Joshi was answering the question of Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth in Lok Sabha. Seth wanted to know from the Government in the Lok Sabha what is the situation of coal production in the country? What is the annual output and what is the framework set by the government to achieve the achievements? In response to the question, Pralhad Joshi said that the actual demand and supply of coal in the year 2019-20 is 955 million tonnes.
Apart from this, coal production in the country has increased tremendously in the last three years. A total of 52 million tonnes of coking coal has been produced in the year 2019-20, while 677 million turn non coking coal has been produced. A total of 730 million tonnes of coal have been produced this year. Joshi informed that Coal India Limited has taken several important steps to increase the production of coal, including the timely implementation of the projects that are going on to achieve the targeted production as per schedule.
In addition, 15 green field projects of about 160 MTY capacity to be promoted by the mine developer and operator have been identified. The manual loading method has been eliminated by introducing side discharge loader hall dump loading in combination with belt conveyors in all underground mines of the same CIL.
This has the advantage that more and more coal is being mined, while surface miners have been introduced in open cast mines to improve operating efficiency and to meet environmental requirements. Many other such steps have been taken by the Central Government to achieve the projected coal production target. The focus of the central government is on the allocation of more and more coal blocks. At the same time, the government is working in the area of taking action for coal mining by coordinating with the state government. The government’s focus is on increasing domestic coal production through a related effort with the railways for the transportation of coal.
Newly allocated captive coal blocks have been allowed to sell 25% of coal production to increase domestic production. Joshi also informed that last year 248 million tonnes of coal have been imported from different countries of the world. The government is working towards the provision of 100% foreign investment, which is directly, and the permission for commercial mining so that the country’s coal production can increase.
