India May Import 6 Million Tons of Coal for Power Utilities

By Gaurav Singh

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Coal India Ltd., the state-owned monopoly, may import 6 million metric tons of coal for power utilities in the year starting April 1, the government said.

The company may produce 312 million tons of coal against an estimated demand of 318 million tons, Santosh Bagrodia, the junior coal minister, said in parliament in New Delhi today.

Coal India accounts for 85 percent of the country’s coal output, according to its Web site. It supplied 242.9 million tons of coal to power utilities in the 10 months to January, exceeding the quota of 239.9 million tons, the minister said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gaurav Singh in New Delhi at gsingh31@bloomberg.net.