The Centre plans to auction six coking coal blocks, a move that may help in augmenting the supply of the fuel used for steel-making, to cater to growing demand. “The Coal Ministry will put on offer six coking coal blocks for captive purposes,” an official privy to the development said.
The entire demand of metallurgical coal, he said, is not met indigenously as the supply of high quality coking coal in the country is limited. Thus, no option is left other than importing of such fuel. Coal India ltd (CIl) which produced 55.22 million tonnes (MT) of coking coal last fiscal is eyeing 59.77 MT of metallurgical coal in the ongoing financial year, the official added. CIl, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production, eyes 63.55 MT coking coal in the next fiscal and 72.30 MT in 2019-20. As per the current import policy, coal is kept under the Open General license (OGl) and consumers are free to import coal from the source of their choice as per their contractual prices on payment of applicable duty.
In the April-January period of FY’17, the country imported 34.84 MT metallurgical coal. In FY'16, India imported 43.51 MT of coking coal and 43.71 MT of fuel used in steel-making in FY'15. The Government had earlier said that efforts were being made to increase the availability of indigenous coking coal in the country in order to reduce the import of the fossil fuel which is mainly used in production of steel.