Coal imports in India’s power sector declines to 22.73 mt

From April 2021 to January 2022, the import of coal by the power sector decreased to 22.73 million tonnes.The details of coal import by the coal based power plants in the last five years and the current year are as follows: (in million tonnes).YearImported coal based power plantsBlended coal based power plantsTotal coal import by Power Plants2016-1746.3019.8766.172017-1839.3717.0456.412018-1940.2921.3761.662019-2045.4723.7569.222020-2135.0810.3945.472021-22 Upto Jan 2216.086.6522.73Since the availability of coal has increased on account of policy measures taken to increase the domestic coal production, there is a decrease in the total coal import to 215.25 million tonne in 2020- 21 from 248.54 million tonne in 2019-20. Coal import in the period between April 2021 to January 2022 has decreased to 173.32 million tonnes in comparison with 180.56 million tonnes in the same period last year.The power sector has decreased the coal import to 45.47 million tonne in 2020-21 from 69.22 million tonne in 2019-20. In the period between April 2021 to January 2022, it decreased to 22.73 million tonnes in comparison with 39.01 million tonnes in the same period last year.The share of coal supply by Coal India Limited (CIL) of the total consumption of coal has increased to 64.3% in 2021-22 from 63.3% in 2020-21 and 60.8% 2019-20.Image SourceAlso read: India's coal imports likely to grow in 2022: Fitch Ratings report