India incurs Rs 1,59,567 crore on import of coal in 3 years: Pratik Prakashbapu Patil

NEW DELHI: India has incurred Rs 1,59,567 crore expenditure on import of coalduring the last three years, minister of state for coal Pratik Prakashbapu Patilsaid on Tuesday.

The gap between projected demand and domestic production of coal is estimated to reach 185.50 million tones by 2016-17, he said.

The projected domestic production is 795 million tonnesas assessedby the Working Group for formulation of the XII five year plan for coal, Patil said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

"It is proposed to secure the supplies both through domestic production as well as import. For enhancing domestic production a number of new projects in public sector coal companies have been proposed to be taken up during the XII Plan. Besides a number of captive blocks are also envisaged to contribute in enhancing the production in the XII Plan," he said.

The total expenditure incurred on import of coal during the last three years is about Rs 1,5 9,567 crore. A little amount of coal has been exported to neighboring countries for several years.

Import and export of coal during the last three years:(Quantity in million tonnesand value in crore rupees)

Year	Import		Export
	Quantity	Value	Quantity	Value
2009-10	73.255	39180	2.449	504
2010-11	68.918	41549	1.875	480
2011-12 (P)	102.853	78837	2.032	590
Total	245.026	159567	6.356	1575