Imports of thermal coal jumped 24 per cent at the country's top 12 major ports to 32.54 million tonnes (MT) during the April-July period this year even as the government continues to announce its commitment to boost domestic output, mainly by monolith Coal India.
These 12 ports had handled 26.29 MT of coal during the same period of the last fiscal.
Thermal coal is the mainstay of India's energy programme as 70 per cent of power generation is dependent on the dry fuel, while Coal Minister Piyush Goyal has been emphasising the need to increase the production by state-run Coal India.
Handling of coking coal, which is used mainly for steel-making, however remained flat at 10.56 MT, as per the data released by the Indian Ports Authority.
The ports had handled 10.74 MT of coking coal in April-July period of 2013-14.
Together, they handled 43.10 MT coal during the April-July period of the current fiscal as against 37.03 MT in the same period of the previous fiscal.
India is the third-largest producer of coal, after China and the US, and has 299 billion tonnes of resources and 123 billion tonnes of proven reserves, which may last for over 100 years.
India has 12 major ports -- Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia)-- which handle approximately 61 per cent of the country's total cargo traffic.
Thermal coal is used in power generation and with the world's largest miner Coal India, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic requirement consistently failing to meet its target as well as demand of the firms, the power plants resort to imports.
Less production coupled with increased demand from power firms is further widening the demand-supply gap in the country, which is likely to widen to 185.5 MT in 2016-17.
Coal India could record barely a 31 MT increase in coal production in four years from 2010 to 2014, but in 2014-15, it recorded an increase of 32 MT.
The company's production rose by 12 per cent to 121.35 MT during the April-June quarter this year compared to 108.32 MT in the year-ago period.
For the current fiscal, CIL's production target has been fixed at 550 MT.
CIL missed the production target for 2014-15 by 3 per cent recording an output of 494.23 MT. The company's output target was 507 MT for the fiscal. In 2013-14, the company had clocked production of 462.53 MT against a target of 482 MT.
The Centre has announced plans to boost Coal India's annual production to the level of 1 billion tonnes by 2019 to meet growing fuel demand.
Coal Minister Goyal has recently said that CIL will invest USD 20 billion (over Rs 1.27 lakh crore) to increase production to one billion tonne over the next five years.
