With surplus coal, Govt focus to turn to quality: Goyal

The government's next target is to supply superior quality of coal to power producers to improve electricity generation and reduce pollution, Union minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday.

"The next goal now is the quality of coal. From shortage to surplus to superior," the coal and power minister said at a conference of state power ministers here.

Recently, fuel quality watchdog Coal Controller had downgraded 41 per cent of samples from the mines of state-run Coal India Ltd.

"Now we want to offer superior quality of coal to power companies and other manufacturing companies so that due to quality there are improvements in power generation, coal is used in less quantity. If less coal is used then there is also less pollution," Goyal said.

He said that due to increased production the coal was available in abundance in the country. "There is no shortage of coal anywhere in the country."

Coal India last month had said that about 41 per cent of coal samples from its mines had been downgraded by quality watchdog Coal Controller.

In most cases, downgrading has been of one to two grades, Coal India had said in its reply to bourses.