Huge coal reserves are a great business opportunity, and the industry should join hands to leverage resources, said Additional Secretary and Nominated Authority, Ministry of Coal, Rupinder Brar.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of high-level Roadshow on Coal Gasification- Surface and Underground Technologies in Mumbai, Brar said, “As we are growing into a larger-sized economy today, we stand as the fourth largest and very soon we are going to be the third largest economy. It’s a great business opportunity for us, given that India has huge reserves of coal. We have almost 400 billion tons… It’s important for us and the industry to join hands to leverage the resources that we have.”
The Ministry of Coal on Friday hosted a high-level Roadshow in the financial capital, bringing together policy makers, industry leaders, investors, technology providers and other key stakeholders to accelerate India’s shift towards cleaner and more efficient use of coal.
“There’s a series of roadshows that we have kicked off in Mumbai on coal gasification in India. Coal gasification is a cleaner way of using coal. It also leads to not just gas but a lot of other byproducts like ammonium nitrate, DME, ethanol, methanol and a host of other products,” she said.
Brar emphasised that as India rapidly advances towards becoming the third-largest economy globally, the time is ripe to harness its domestic coal resources more efficiently.
Brar noted, “I think if you look at the story of coal for the last 10 years, it’s been a galloping story of progress. The coal sector has been contributing to the other infrastructure sectors. On its own, it’s the fourth largest contributor in terms of infrastructure. But if you look at the top three, you look at steel, cement, well, they also have a huge component of coal in them. So coal is truly driving a lot of progress.”
India achieved a historic milestone by surpassing one billion tonnes (BT) of coal production on 20 March 2025, in FY 2024-25–11 days ahead of last year’s 997.83 million tonnes (MT).
With the fifth-largest coal reserves and as the second-largest consumer, coal remains crucial, contributing 55 per cent to the national energy mix and fuelling over 74 per cent of total power generation.
She further credited policy reforms and collaboration among stakeholders for the sector’s growth.
“What’s really helped in the last decade is the transparency that has been brought in terms of the allocation of coal blocks. Also, the government has been working very closely with the lime ministries and state governments to make sure that the operation and divestment of the coal mines are done at a very rapid pace. And we see a lot of improvement in terms of the outputs,” she added.
The programme showcased how coal gasification can transform the nation’s vast coal reserves into sustainable sources of energy and chemical feedstock, reduce import dependence and open up new avenues of economic growth.