Letter to BS: Why does India depend on imported coal?

Apropos ‘Global miner Peabody aims to sell more coal to India’ (April 29), why does India depend on imported coal when it has got its own good quality coal reserves? Not only that, there are gassy mines in India in the Jharia and Raniganj coalfields in Jharkhand and West Bengal and if the government was only to tap this source and do the gas extraction using the inseam directional drilling technology, it would allow them not only to produce more coal from these gassy mines but also generate power from the gas extracted and feed it into the grid. 

This would light up millions of villages in India if gas extracted from coal mines was used for gas-based power generation, while the coal could be supplied to steel, cement and power companies.

Amar Bhasin  Australia

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