Kolkata, May 15 (IANS): With the government setting a one billion tonne coal production target for Coal India by 2020, Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday said the import of thermalcoking coal may be stopped in two-and-a-half years.

Launching Coal India Ltd.'s Roadmap for Mission 1 Billion Tonne coal production here, Goyal said a large amount of coal was required to fulfil india's demand for electricity.

"We still have 28 crore Indians who do not receive electricity and we spend millions of litres of diesel to run generator sets in the country...

"... and the wave of industrialisation that we see ahead after the launch of the Make in India initiative as well as the double digit growth that we see ahead, gives me the confidence that India needs to produce at least 2 trillion units of electricity in the next five years from the current one trillion units," said Goyal when asked if the power companies will be able to consume the coal produced by CIL.

"That will surely warrant much larger quantity of coal while also ensuring we stop importing coal after having billions of tonnes of coal reserves in the country," said Goyal.

Asked about the time frame for stopping coal imports, Goyal said: "We will see the decline in the trend of import of coal from the current year itself and about two and two-and-a-half years time, thermal coking coal will be stopped."

Goyal said the import of higher calorific coal will continue.

"As far as higher calorific coal for the steel plants, it may still continue to be imported because India's production and explored reserves are much less in that category," Goyal added.