Sriprakash Jaiswal, Coal Minister, said that even as industrialisation and power requirement have pushed up the demand for coal, domestic production has not kept pace.
He said the Government was taking steps to rectify the shortage of domestic coal supply in light of rising demands.
Jaiswal was addressing the 4th National Coal Conference in New Delhi on Friday.
During 2012-13, the overall production of coal increased by 17.5 million tonnes, he said. Of this, close to 16.4 million tonnes came from Coal India Ltd (CIL), which also registered a growth of 1.3 per cent in production, 1.8 per cent in off-take and 7.4 per cent in coal supply to the power sector during April-May 2013.
He attributed this increase in production to concentrated efforts by coal public sector undertakings, close monitoring as well as better inter-Ministerial co-ordination by Coal Ministry officials.
He, however, added that environmental and land acquisition constraints, law and order problems as well as evacuation troubles resulted in hampering coal production, so much so that even captive coal blocks had failed to meet production targets.
Saying that no policy changes have been instituted on importing coal to meet domestic demands, Jaiswal, however, insisted that the Government would fulfil the coal requirements according to the market needs.
He also said that the Government was proposing to offer seven open-cast mines of 25 million tonnes capacity to mine developer-cum-operators. New projects with PSU coal companies are also in the pipeline, and a number of coal blocks have been allocated to various private companies with some more allocations being planned.
“We need to be aggressive in acquiring coal assets outside the country from a long-term energy security point of view,” he said, while commending private sector companies for movement in this direction.