Nagpur: India has a vast resource of coal, and the reserves are enough for us to last for the next 100 years. It ranked second in 2016 in coal production when it came to global ranking. About 63% of total energy requirements in India are met from coal. Coal is one of the significant potential energy locums for the Indians.
While speaking to Nagpur Today, the Chairman and Managing Director of Gupta Corporation, Padmesh Gupta emphasized on how steadily the coal industry has grown in the past few years. “There has been a structural shift — a remarkable transformation that this industry has witnessed, he said.
“The industry has a target of 1 billion tonne which needs to be fulfilled by 2020, and in its chase, the production has increased from 536 million tonnes in 2015-16 to 676.5 million tonnes in 2017-18. This has helped in reducing the imports which have gone down too,” Padmesh Gupta stated and also mentioned about several reforms in domestic coal supply which was possible because of the changes brought about in marketing and distribution methods of the coal industry.
Gupta further said, “There are special e-auctions and forward e-auction window that has been introduced for the non-power customer and power consumers respectively that have added to the improvement of coal availability in the last few years. Moreover, the now permitted method to authorize flexibility in the utilization of domestic coal by private producers is projected to reduce the price of coal.”
Padmesh Gupta said he is also happy about the privatization of the coal sector after being centrally controlled by the government for years. This move will be definitely better the domestic output and help in making the supplies more certain, adds Padmesh. “Not only will the supplies be stable but the quality of the blocks will be good provided the offer made is good.”
Privatization, says Padmesh Gupta, will help in bringing to Indian coal industry modern technologies by the global coal miners that will automate things and increase the mechanization because the mine owners portray their best efficiencies in order to win the bid.
Dwelling on new pricing policy, Gupta said the new policy which will soon be announced to move to the worldwide standard of charging clients based on the actual GCV of the dry fuel. “This will help in solving the problem of variance in the quality of coal and grade slippage amongst the power plant developers and Coal India Limited. This step will also encourage the public players to establish coal washeries to solve the quality concerns.”
Although there is so much development in the coal industry, Padmesh Gupta reveals about the massive growth in the thermal power generation and the predicted dawdle in thermal capacity addition. He also spoke about the market conditions which can be favorable for the new participants because of the usual problems such as land acquisition issues and delay in clearances that already exist in the market. Moreover, the owners are trying hard to put their assets into use even whilst they face problems in recovering their investment after bidding for the auctioned blocks.
The Chairman and Managing Director of Gupta Corporation Padmesh Gupta concluded by saying how fruitful the coal industry is and that it holds immense growth opportunities for India provided there are certain restructurings made.
