With a view to fulfill its fuel requirement, country’s biggest thermal power generating company, NTPC has decided to import 12.5 million tons of coal in the next financial year (FY-09-10).

Speaking on the sidelines of a CII event here, VS Sampath, Power Secretary said, “We have set a coal import target of 35 million tons for power utilities in 2009-10 against the earlier planned 25 million tons.”

Earlier the government had set up a target of 25 million tons of coal for the purpose of power utilities. However, it decided to revise this target to 28.7 million tons last month.

It can be recalled that for its current financial year, NTPC has imported nearly 5 million tons of coal out of targeted 8.2 million tons.

The government-run company is planning to import the required coal from Indonesia and Australia.

Apart from this, NTPC has also decided to commission two units of its Dadri thermal power station in UP, one unit each in Sipat (Chhattisgarh), Korba (Chhattisgarh) and Aravalli (Jhajjar, Haryana).

According to a data released recently by Central Electricity Authority (the power planning body) 37 thermal power plants, out of total 77 units in the country, are running on coal stocks availability of less than seven days.