Coal Import Slips 6 % In Sep ; CIL To Turn Digital

As per reports, coal imports dipped 6 per cent to 16.1 million tonnes in September over the corresponding month last year because of higher prices of the fossil fuel in the international market.

The newly-appointed CEO of mjunction services, an online procurement and sales platform floated together by SAIL and Tata Steel, Vinaya Varma said that in September 2016, coal import (mostly all types of coal) is observed  at 16.1 million tonnes (MT) (provisional) as compared to 17.10 MT in September 2015.

He further added that higher prices in international markets pose to discourage Indian buyers from importing coal since they hope rates to soften and this is the primary reason for falling inward shipments in recent months.

 

Consequences

• Adequate of domestic coal is available in the country. Also, the demand for coal in India is not growing as per expectation as total economy is not rising in the way it was expected to grow.
• Hence, leading to lower-than-anticipated demand for steel and cement, therefore the lower demand for power and coal, he added.
• As a matter of fact, the price of South African standard steam coal with 6000 Kcal/kg NAR calorific value has grown by nearly 30 per cent between July 1, 2016 and September 30, 2016 from USD 56.50 per tonne to USD 73.25 per tonne (FOB).
• Whereas coking coal prices hiked nearly 132 per cent to USD 215 per tonne from USD 92.50 per tonne (FOB) during the corresponding period, the mjunction services said.
• Showing concern over import of coal in spite being excess in the dry fuel, Piyush Goyal, the Coal and Power Minister had reported previously this month that Coal India has set a target to replace about 15 MT of imported coal with indigenous fuel in the coming six months.

Helped by a record coal production by the world’s largest coal miner Coal India, India reduced its import bill of the dry fuel by more than Rs 28,000 crore in the last financial year.

Coal India

State-run Coal India will supposedly turn totally digital by the end of December. This follows the coal ministry previously announcing that it has decided to move all papers and documents to digital format November 1 onwards.

The coal ministry had previously announced that it had advanced the date for going totally digital from November 1 to October 16, a step taken to bring in more efficiency and transparency.

The coal ministry wants other ministries to do away with physical files and shift them to electronic format which is going to help ministries exchange papers and documents electronically.

The government had launched the Digital India Programme last year with an aim to transform the country into a digitally-empowered knowledge economy.