NEW DELHI: Coal minister Pralhad Joshi on Wednesday said India will start exporting coal from FY26.
The minister, speaking at the launch of 7th round of commercial coal mine auction, retorted that the fossil fuel is going to remain a main source of energy for next 40-50 years.
“This year, we won’t need to import as India’s coal production this fiscal is up by 14% to 880 MT and offtake is likely to touch 900 million tonne,” he said. He further added as the production grew substantially after joining of private players, India will be in position to export coal. Joshi said production from captive/commercial mines has crossed 100 million tonne for the first time.
“Except for coking coal, we will stop the (import of) thermal coal,” he added. India, along with China, is the world’s largest coal producer, consumer and importer. This comes after India faced a major coal crisis, which led to power outages in many states in past two year. In 2021, coal stocks at power plants touched lowest to 7.23 million tonnes (mt). In May 2022, in peak summer, several states complained of coal shortage for power plants.