Coal imports have fallen from 217.78 Mte in 2014-15 to 203.95 Mte in 2015-16 and further to 190.95 Mte. in 2016-17. The trend of fall in import of coal has continued in 2017-18. This was stated by Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy and Mines in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on 27th July 2017.
The Minister further stated that as per Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics (DGCI&S), during April-June 2017-18, 52.74 Mte. (Provisional) of coal was imported as compared to 57.38 Mte. in the corresponding period of 2016-17 showing a decline of 8.1%. The fall in imports is largely on account of enhanced production by CIL, due to which the country has moved from a regime of coal scarcity to a coal surplus situation. The vendible stock of CIL has increased from 53.62 Mt. as on 01.04.2015 to 61.92 Mt. as on 01.04.2017. The off-take / dispatch of coal of CIL have also increased from 488.86 Mt in 2014-15 to 542.82 Mt. in 2016-17. The vendible stock of CIL even on 01.07.2017 was 49.90 Mt. However, the gap between demand and supply of coal cannot be bridged completely as there is insufficient domestic availability of coking coal and power plants designed on imported coal will continue to import coal for their production, the Minister added.
