Coal India (CIL) has been permitted by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) to import coal to meet the shortfall in domestic availability. As per the CIL, the demand for coal will be more from October after the monsoon is over.

From October India may have to start importing coal. For the last four to five months, all power stations have had 21 million tonne of stock, which is unprecedented. It was never more than 9 to 10 million tonne. For the past four months, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and West Bengal have been requesting CIL not to supply coal because they have surplus stock, said Coal India Chairman & Managing Director S Narsing Rao.

He said the shortage of thermal coal this year (2013/14) to be around 120 million tonne. Since April 2012, there has been a growth of 32 million tonne of thermal coal, he added. It was unprecedented growth. Never before has this company witnessed such a steep volume increase in off-take in a single year, he claimed.