India exported about 8 lakh tonnes of coal to neighboring countries in the fiscal year 2020-21 with around 77.20 per cent of it being directed to Nepal.
The Union Coal Ministry’s Provisional Coal Statistics 2020-21 further revealed that 13.04 per cent of the total quantity was also delivered to Bangladesh.
"Although, there was short supply of coal in India compared to its demand and it had to resort to import of coal, India exported some quantity of coal to its neighbouring countries during the year 2020-21," it said.
“In spite of sufficient coal reserve, we have not been able to meet our demand from our own production. Moreover, the supply of high-quality coal (low-ash coal) in the country has been limited,” the findings revealed, as reported by the Press Trust of India (PTI).
Hence, India resorted to importing coal, particularly the low-ash variety, in order to see through the gap between the demand and supply of the product. Also, it was done in order to roll out high quality coal for use in several industries.
Furthermore, the import of coal in FY21 reported a decrease of 13.50 per cent as compared to on an year-on-year (YoY) basis.
To put it numbers, India imported raw coal worth Rs 116,037.2 crore in FY21 as compared to Rs 152,732 crore in FY20.