Essay On Coal Industry

1114 Words5 Pages

Coal is the primary fuel source for many industries. Coal majorly cannot be replaced by any other fuel since it is the cheapest and the most efficient source of fuel. Coal reserves in the world accounts to 860 Billion Tonnes. India ranks 4th in coal reserves accounting to 286 BT and ranks 3rd in coal mining. Power sector of India accounts for 60% of coal (2,09,276 MW). There are some other industries like steel industry, cement industry which also requires coal for their operations. With ever increasing demand of power,the domestic coal reserves have become inadequate to fulfill the demand requirements of the nation. The growth in the coal sector has so far been led by state owned companies. The change in industry structure has been …show more content…

Researchers foresee the use of coal for power production as the major source for several more years. It is necessary that we increase the domestic coal production by letting in private players in the sector. Deregulation of coal mining is highly needed to satisfy the growing demand. Some serious structural changes are required in the system to make ourselves self sustained with minimum import levels possible.

The present industry structure is hemmed in by a number of regulations and the legislative framework is very restrictive for proper development of the coal sector. There is a serious need to reform and deregulate the coal sector.
The licensing process needs to be improved to attract technically and financially strong players in the global coal mining industry. The mine owners should be able to directly monetize the upside of their performance by allowing a certain proportion as free trade (in the manner of e-auction run by CIL today) in the domestic market.
The challenge is not that of increasing production alone, but doing it in an efficient manner to keep costs in control, and ensure that sustainability and safety of the mines is not compromised. The Indian coal industry in fact has significant scope for modernisation and productivity improvement, which should improve performances on recovery rate and operating

Open Document