Hardly any demand for power in country: Swarup

 Expressing concerns over lack of demand for power in the country, Coal Secretary Anil Swarup on Wednesday wondered as to what would the Government do with its ambitious 1 billion tonnes of production target for fossil fuel by 2020.

“For me the serious concerns are: Number one, there is hardly any demand for power. What we will doIJ We are planning to produce one billion tonnes of coal by 2020. What will I do with that coal,” he said.

“Someone has to look into these issues. How to increase this demand of power. It is very important because today per capita consumption of energy in India is equal to per capita consumption of the US in the late 90’s. If that is the pace than the demand has to go up,” the Secretary said.

He further stated that the Government is on a sticky- wicket where it doesn’t know what to do with the surplus coal.     In fact, in the current financial year, there was cut down in coal production so the fossil fuel does not catch fire at the pit heads.