MINISTER OF RAILWAYS, COAL & FINANCE AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS
(SHRI PIYUSH GOYAL)
(a): Plant-wise and State-wise coal supplies for the last three years and the current year from Coal India Limited (CIL) and Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) are at Annexure–I and Annexure-II respectively.
(b) & (c): There is no shortage of coal for the Power Sector. In the beginning of 2018-19, Coal India Limited (CIL) had a pithead stock of 55.55 Million Tonne (MT) and stock at power house end was 16.27 MT. In the 2018-19 (up to 05.08.2018), CIL dispatched 167.86 MT (provisional) coal to Power Sector, thereby achieving a growth of 15% over the dispatch in the corresponding period of last year. The growth in dispatch of coal to Power Sector has helped coal based generation to achieve positive growth of 5.3% and 101.3% of the programme in the 1st Quarter of 2018-19. This is despite the fact that generation from imported coal based plants was 66% of the programmee in the first quarter of 2018-19. This shows that shortfall in generation from imported coal based plants was also compensated by increased power generation from plants based on domestic coal.
The progress of production and offtake of CIL is reviewed regularly. New rail lines are being laid for smooth evacuation of increased coal production from the mines of growing coalfields of SECL, MCL and CCL. Further, coal supplies to Power sector is monitored regularly by an Inter-Ministerial Sub Group comprising representatives of Ministries of Power, Coal, Railways, Shipping, Central Electricity Authority, NITI Aayog, CIL etc. A committee of Secretary (Coal), Secretary (Power) and Member (Traffic), Railway Board has also been jointly reviewing the coal transportation and supply on a regular basis.
(d) and (e): Ministry of Power has advised on 30.05.2018 to Energy Department of State Governments to assess their requirement in respect of import of coal and plan accordingly. Considering the demand projection of power sector by CEA and production plan of CIL, no shortage of domestic coal in power sector is anticipated in the coming years. For the Financial Year 2018-19, Ministry of Power has projected annual domestic coal requirement 615 MT (525 MT from Coal India Limited, 53 MT from SCCL and 37 MT from Captive mines). This requirement is being met by supply of coal from domestic sources. Due to these efforts of enhanced domestic coal supply to power plants, the coal import by power plants has been reducing during last three years. The coal imported for blending purposes during 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 have been 37.1 Million Tonnes (MT), 19.8 MT and 17.0 MT respectively. Coal and coke, being under Open General License as per import policy of the Government, are imported by various traders and consuming industries as per their requirements. However, the gap between demand and domestic supply of coal cannot be bridged completely as there is insufficient availability of coking coal and power plant designed on imported coal will continue to import coal for their production.
(f): The methodology for auction of coal mines/blocks for sale of coal under the provisions of the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015 and the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 has been approved by the Government. No coal mines have so far been auctioned under this methodology.
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