Mr Sriprakash Jaiswal Indian minister of state (Independent Charge) for coal informed the Rajya Sabha that Central Electricity Authority has estimated that as against the total coal requirement of 404 million tonnes required by power utilities during 2009-10, the indigenous availability would be about 363 million tonnes.

Therefore, ministry of power has advised the power utilities to import 28.70 million tonnes which is equivalent to about 41 million tonnes of indigenous coal, during 2009-10 to bridge the gap between demand and indigenous availability.

Import of coal is under Open General Licence and consumers are free to import coal. During the year 2007-08 and 2008-09, various consumers including consumers from power sector have imported coal from Australia, Indonesia etc to the tune of 49.79 million tonnes and 59.00 million tonnes respectively.