The overall coal production in India has gone up by 47 per cent to 893.08 million tonnes during the last nine years,

Coal production of 893.08 MT in 2022-23 was the highest in the country’s history. 

As per the recently finalised ‘Action Plan for 2023-24’ by the Ministry of Coal, the coal production target for fiscal 2023-24 is 1,012 million tonnes by enhancing overall production, efficiency, sustainability and adopting new technologies.

‘Mission Coking Coal

‘Mission Coking Coal’ was launched by the government in August 2021, to develop a roadmap that would suggest ways to augment the production and utilization of domestic coking coal in India by 2030.

Mission Coking Coal has been launched to enhance production of coking coal with the following objectives:

i. Enhancing coking coal production from 52 Million Tonne (MT) in FY 2022 to 140 MT in FY 2030.

ii. Enhancing coking coal washing capacity from 23 MT in FY 2022 to 61 MT in FY 2023.

Coking coal

• Coking coal is mainly used in manufacturing of steel through blast furnace route. 
• Domestic coking coal is high ash coal (mostly between 18%-49%) and is not suitable for direct use in the blast furnace. 
• Therefore, coking coal is washed to reduce the ash percentage and Indian Prime and Medium Coking Coal is blended with imported coking coal before utilization in the blast furnace.