The coal industry has been one of the most important industries of the country for a long time now. Although, in the European nations, the use of compressed natural gas has substituted the usage of coal as a fuel up to 40 percent, in India the usage of coal as a fire power or fuel still takes a dominant position. In the metro cities, the usage of CNG can be observed widely. But in the rural parts, which consists the most of India, coal is a dominant market. This makes the mining and usage of coal so much widespread and market consuming.
In wide sense, the usage of CNG is still not efficient enough in India so as to substitute the complete usage of one individual sector. This is what makes coal, one of the most important and profitable sectors in India. Still it is facing severe problems owing to different kinds of factors.
Population being the primary problem has increased the demand by a considerable margin. The Coal India Limited manufactures the majority of coal in India, close to 90 percent and can be considered as a standpoint. The CIL reports that it is unable to fulfil the growing need of the country.
Inefficiencies in the transport sector are a reason why coal economy still cannot call itself stable in India. The railways are said to subsidise the transportation cost of public by levying more transport charges for coal which is why the transportation cost is a major spend for coal companies.
Coal powered generation is also a major trouble making factor which has its roots attached again, with the growing population. The central government has launched programs and schemes so that electricity can reach every single household but statistics become the problem while implementing that. The per capita consumption of electricity in India is close to one third to the world’s per capita consumption and still there are a million households without electricity in India.
However, the urban and semi urban population still remains to be the majorly consuming segments of the industry for which there is still a little bit of stability. Coal economy being a considerable contributor to the national economy cannot be taken casually. Nations around the world suffer from the lack of natural resources and have to spend billions on imports. But India on the other hand being full of this natural resource cannot make the optimal use of it.
Magazine
