State power firms to import 52 million tonne coal in FY16

State-owned power generation companies will import about 52 million tonnes of coal, accounting for 70 per cent of total dry fuel imports by power firms in the current fiscal, to meet their requirements.

As per a document prepared by Power Ministry in consultation with Central Electricity Authority (CEA), 37 power producers, both public and private, would need to import 73 million tonnes of coal to meet their fuel demand.

As many as 25 PSU power generation companies would have to import about 52 million tonnes of coal, while 12 other private players would import about 21 million tonnes in 2015-16 financial year.

The government has asked power generation utilities to take necessary action in the matter, the 

document added.

More than 21 MT of coal will be imported by the private power generation utilities.

Of the 12 private power companies, Reliance Infrastructure will import 5.2 MT for its Dahanu thermal power plant and Adani group will ship 4.7 MT for its Tiroda project in Maharashtra.

The government has set an ambitious target of raising the output of state-owned Coal India to one billion tonne even as the coal major missed its goal of producing 507 MT of dry fuel during 2014-15. It was able to produce 494.23 MT.

Last month, the company produced 57.27 MT of coal as against its target of 56.87 MT.

The Ministry of Coal has fixed a target of 550 MT of production for Coal India during the current fiscal.