As per Ministry of Environment and Forest & Climate Change (MOEF&CC), ash content of coal produced in the country is generally 25 to 45 % whereas average ash content of imported coal varies from 10 to 20 %.
-Coal produced in India has comparatively higher ash content than imported coal.
-Higher ash content in Indian coal is due to drift theory of formation of coal deposits in India. Coal seams formed due to drift theory contains higher ash as compared to in-situ theory of formation.
As per Ministry of Environment stipulation, coal based thermal power plant, situated beyond 500 km from the pit-head, be supplied with, and shall use, raw or blended or beneficiated coal with ash content not exceeding 34% , on quarterly average basis.
-Coal Companies are supplying coal to their customers maintaining ash percentage below 34% on quarterly average basis as per the aforesaid stipulation.
Steps taken for international standard: PSU Coal India Limited has taken many steps to adopt international standards in Coal Mining. Some of those steps are:
- Deployment of surface miners (during 2016-17 around 46% of total production achieved using surface miner) for selective mining;
- Deployment of high capacity Heavy Earth Moving Machinery (HEMM) i.e. up to 240 Te dumpers and up to 42 Cu.m bucket capacity shovels;
- Replacement of manual method of underground mining by mechanized and semi-mechanized mining method.
-As per the current coal import policy, coal is kept under Open General License (OGL) and consumers are free to import coal from the source of their choice as per their contractual prices on payment of applicable duty.
Efforts to reduce import of coal: Coal India Limited has taken the following steps for promotion of substituting imported coal with indigenous coal:
- Rationalization of sources by part of coal supply coming from sources of higher grade coal.
- Offering coal from various sources including higher grades through various types of e-auction schemes including special forward e-auction for power sector.
- Taking intuitive like flexible tenure of coal lifting, reductions of EMD and of floor price in coal auction for power sector consumers.
- Sanction of coal linkages under SHAKTI policy.
Differences between in-situ theory and drift theory of coal formation
In-situ theory of coal formation: As per this theory, the coal seams are observed where once forest
grew. As the land was sinking slowly, the accumulated vegetation matters went under water slowly and did not decompose and destroyed. In the course of time, the rate of sinking of land was increased and coal forest was submerged under water. Again, land along with the coal forest emerged out of water after sufficient time and this cycle went on again and again, which is responsible of formation of coal strata and seams.
Drift theory of coal formation: According to this theory, the plant material was transported with the stream of
water from one place to another, and finally get deposited in a place of swamp having suitable condition like sediments. The coal seams of India are of drift origin.
About SHAKTI Policy: It is a Scheme for Harnessing and Allocating Koyala (Coal) Transparently in India. This policy was approved on 17-May-2017. Allocation of linkages in future will be transparent and bidding based, barring some exceptions as per Tariff Policy. Future allocation/grant of linkages will be based on auction and/or tariff based bidding. It attempts to make optimal allocation of the vital natural resource across the power units
