The government has postponed the schedule of coal mines to be allotted for commercial mining and will shortly come out with a modified one.

Coal production had to be curtailed in the month of April on the back of low offtake. The government has set a target of 1.5 billion tonnes coal output by 2020. Coal inventories to the tune of about 50 million tonnes (MT) were lying at the pitheads and about 30 odd MT were at power plants.

Coal supply via memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with plants without linkage and also for those plants with tapering linkages will continue till June 30 for independent power producers (IPPs) of about 9,000 MW generation capacity.

The standing linkage (long-term) committee on coal under Ministry of Coal (MoC) has recommended grant of bridge linkage to NTPC´s 1,600 MW

In view of rising production of the dry fuel, India plans to completely stop thermal coal imports in 2-3 years that would result in annual savings of Rs.40,000 crore, Minister of State for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal said.

The Ministry of Coal (MoC) is taking various steps to resolve issues related to auctioned mines and allotted blocks, and bring them to production.

India´s coal imports inched up by 1.7 per cent in February, the first rise in eight months, as told to Reuters by Coal Secretary Anil Swarup.

The state-run Coal India Ltd. (CIL) is likely to miss its production target of 550 million tonne (MT) for the financial year 2015-´16 by 10-15 MT, due to slump in demand.

Odisha Power Generation Corporation Ltd. (OPGC) has urged the Ministry of Coal (MoC) to provide bridge coal linkage of 16.9 million tonne (MT) every year for four years.