State-owned CIL has been mandated by the Indian government to replace at least 100 million tonne of imports with domestically-produced coal in the ongoing fiscal. An official said “Coal India has a mandate of replacing at least 100 million tonne of imported coal with domestic non-coking coal in the financial year 2020-21. In its bid to substitute imports with domestic coal, CIL is connected with non-regulated sectors like sponge iron, cement, aluminium for domestic coal. It has also removed many extra costs and reduced the reserve price to zero.”
Progress comes at a time when, on the one hand, the country has an surplus of domestic coal, while, on the other, demand for the dry fuel is slumping.
In 2019-20, India imported 247.1 million tons of coal, 5 % higher than 235.35 million tons imported in 2018-19.
