Indian coal production

According to preliminary results, during the year 2005-2006 Coal India Limited, which contributes 85 percent of total coal production in India, and other captive mines produced 343.4 million metric tons and 27.5 million metric tons of coal respectively. As outlined in the annual plan for year 2006-2007, the estimated coal demand would be 474.2 million metric tons, 432.4 million metric tons of which would be supplied domestically and 41.8 million metric tons would be imported, including 24.2 million metric tons of coking coal for steel sector and 17.6 million metric tons of other than coking coal for different sectors of the economy. In addition, Coal India Limited appears to be in quest of various art technologies in the areas of mass production, coal beneficiation, waste coal utilization, coal gasification and extraction of coal from steep seams. The government's goal is to place India in a position which would allow it to use clean coal technologies as a main energy sources. Accordingly, India is already preparing plans in the thematic areas of coal preparation and mining technologies as a part of the Asia Pacific partnership on Clean Development Climate (APP) organization. Five projects in the thematic area of Coal Preparation Technology and four projects in coal Mining Technology were successfully completed. The similar projects were proposed under US-Indo coal working Group, while the project on coal quality management for improving coal beneficiation techniques was proposed under Indo-EU coal working group.