While Prime Minister Narendra Modi is talking about using local and also be vocal to use local, Rakesh Kumar led NLC India Ltd ((Formerly Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd) seems to have missed the message. NLC is deliberately delaying the coal production from Talabira II & III coal blocks allocated long ago in 2016 by the coal ministry. Rather, the company continues to import expensive coal. In FY20, the import by the company was more than double at 10.99 million tonne (MT) compared to 5.48 MT in FY19.
In early April 2020, the coal minister Pralhad Joshi wrote to chief ministers of all states asking them not to import the dry fuel and take domestic supply of fuel from state-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL), which has the fossil fuel in abundance. The development comes at a time when there is a drop in power demand in the country in the wake of the lockdown imposed to contain the deadly coronavirus.
