Coal India, the producer with no experience in importing supplies

The country's largest domestic supplier has been appointed a quasi-canalising agency for sourcing overseas supplies

One of the quirky elements of the coal supply crisis is that the government has nominated a company with no experience of importing coal as a sort of canalising agency to import for government- and private-owned power generation companies. This is state-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL), the world’s largest producer and monopoly domestic supplier.

It is unclear why the coal ministry decided that it would not be useful to rope in specialised state-run importers such as MMTC. An email to MMTC did not elicit a reply. Instead CIL, with no experience of importing coal, has raised three import tenders, importing