India will produce 1 Billion tons of coal in 2023: Minister Joshi
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New Delhi, Dec 02: Being a Coal Minister is not easy in any part of the world. There is pressure from green activists to shut down mines, and there is pressure from human rights activists to protect the livelihood of coal miners. Pralhad Joshi, Minister for Coal and Mines in India, faces a similar dilemma every day. While he has been very vocal about the fact that coal production and consumption in India will continue to grow for the next two decades, he realizes that his ministry has to align with the green targets India committed to at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Talking about India’s energy security needs, Joshi lays out his ministry’s plans to make coal mining sustainable.
It is important to keep in mind the issue of emissions and global warming when looking at energy security. Given the emission target that PM Modi has provided, balancing both is a difficult task, but we have been making progress.
While coal gasification is happening on one side, we are also focusing on plantation and reuse of mine water for irrigation. Even for drinking water, we are using mining water and making it potable. These are big challenges on the side of sustainability, but a bigger challenge that our government is addressing is that of imports. Despite having so many coal reserves in India, we are still having to import from other countries, and I want to stop that. As far as thermal power is concerned, we will stop importing coal by 2024-25. We have to achieve sustainability without letting go of energy security. One of the best solutions for this would be gasification. We are also providing incentives in commercial coal mining. This includes 50 percent as far as revenue sharing is concerned, and an additional Rs 6,000 crore incentive for those who want to participate in gasification. It's what you call a productivity-graded incentive. Another important step is the plantation work that Coal India is doing. If this is properly recorded and authenticated, that itself will be a world record. Back in 2012, or even prior to that, the allocation process of natural resources was very corrupt. Now, 64 auctions for commercial coal mining have happened and another 141 will take place simultaneously. Unlike in the past, no industrialist approaches our government for coal mine allocation, as we have established transparency. I want to underline that Coal India has done an amazing job in the last 2-3 years. Their production has gone up like anything. Having said that, depending on a single PSU was not right. They should have given coal mines to the private sector then itself. If privatization had happened 20-25 years ago, you could've brought out a good amount of coal in this time. We imported coal worth Rs 2.5 lakh crore annually for 20 years. There was no planning before the Modi government came to power. Now, I can proudly say that we have established a transparent practice. The allocation of mines was totally based on discretion back then. The auction mode that we use presently is the most transparent, as the Supreme Court has pointed out. Nobody has dared to raise fingers at Piyushji (Minister for Coal from 2014 to 2019) or me so far, because of the transparency that has been brought in. There are no malafide intentions or corruption anywhere. That is why 64 blocks have been successfully auctioned so far, and now 141 are left. I have no doubt in my mind regarding the confidence of the private sector.
According to me, they are doing a good job and they should continue to perform well without being complacent. As far as the government and I are concerned, we are very clear that there is no proposal for privatization or anything like that. While approaching sustainability, energy security remains paramount. To achieve sustainability, there are steps like plantation, gasification, using mine water for irrigation, drinking water, etc. Emissions cannot be stopped altogether. We have to absorb the emissions and build capacity for the absorption. That is a part of sustainable practices and our ministry, as well as the government, is trying to do that.