India Ramps Up Steel Sector Supply with Eight New Coking Coal Washeries

India is in motion to establish coking coal washeries of new capacity in a big way throughout the country and is constructing eight new washeries with a total capacity of 21.5 million metric tonnes (mt), spread over Jharkhand and West Bengal. This is one of the measures taken by the Centre under “Mission Coking Coal,” launched by India in August 2021 for enhancing domestic supply and curtailing expensive imports for the steel sector.

As per the Ministry of Coal’s report to Parliament on Tuesday, the additional units are at different stages of development, from construction through tendering and awards of contracts. They will enable much stronger self-sufficiency when operational in meeting what is perhaps the most important raw material requirement of the steel industry within the country.

Production of coking coal in India has already increased significantly from 44.79 million mt for the year 2020-21 to 66.47 million mt for 2024-25. Washeries, the ministry believes, will play an important role in sustaining and accelerating that growth, and in reducing dependency on imports from countries like Australia and the US.

The charge is led by the biggest state-owned giant, Coal India Limited (CIL). In addition to building new washeries, CIL has offered 11 defunct coking coal mines to private companies for revival under a revenue-sharing model. This strategy aims to tap into idle reserves while leveraging private sector efficiency.

A revival scheme of the New Madhuband Coking Coal Washery has already been set up and inaugurated in 2023–24. It has a capacity of 5 million mt per year and is among the largest of its kind in the country. Hopefully, it is expected to be a model for similar ventures.

Coking coal is a key input in the steel industry: the growing demand is due to India’s increasing infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. The government plans to stabilize supply lines, lower its import bills, and promote self-reliance in a strategically important sector by ramping up processing capacity and bringing back on-stream defunct mines.

Officials stated that the Mission Coking Coal projects are in line with India’s larger aspiration of becoming a global steel manufacturing hub, based on sourcing raw materials sustainably and securely.