NEW DELHI: The country’s per capita electricity consumption is likely to double by 2030, said coal minister Pralhad Joshi on Friday. The minister said energy security of the country needs to be further reinforced by focusing on coal production and off take.
While addressing the consultative committee meeting, he added that domestic coal production and availability has gone up in recent years due to a series of innovative measures adopted by the ministry. “Overall coal output is likely to surpass 1 billion tonne this year. For transportation, rake availability has also improved considerably recently, thereby ensuring adequate coal to the thermal power plants in the country,” said the minister.
He further said the production from commercial or captive mines has improved substantially. As per the ministry, the production from captive/commercial mines from year 2015-16 to 2020-23 has gone up from about 28.62 MT to 116.55 MT with a CAGR of 22.21% and is expected to touch about 145 MT in FY 23-24. It is expected that by FY 2030 coal production from captive/commercial will reach to the level of about 350 MT and it will be just next to production from CIL.
The minister said that the coal mine auction launched in 2020, so far 91 mines have been successfully auctioned. A total of 7 tranche of auctions of blocks for commercial use have been completed and eighth and ninth tranche of auctions are in process.