India's largest power generation company NTPC said it is not in favour of ramping up its coal imports as this would escalate the cost of electricity.

Mr Arup Roy Choudhury CMD of NTPC on the sidelines of a SCOPE Award function told reporters that "What happens is that mixing of imported coal increases the price of power. Unless there is a correction down the line in the network, it does not make much sense to get more and more imported coal.”

He said that "We need to acquire assets linked to [thermal] coal first of all.”

Meanwhile, the company is also importing the fuel to bridge the shortfall in domestic supply.

Mr Choudhury said that "We are already getting 16 million tonne, which is ok... Our eyes and ears are always open for a good buy.”

NTPC imports about 16 million tonnes of coal every year to meet its demand.

In the current fiscal (2011-12), NTPC's coal requirement is about 164 million tonne. Out of the total, about 114 million tonne is expected to come from Coal India.

However, lower production by CIL is impacting power projects in the country. Coal India has revised its production target for the current fiscal to 440 million tonne from 452 million tonne.

(Sourced from BS)