Chennai, May 15 (IANS): In a boost to domestic manufacturing of earth-moving equipment used in mines, Coal India Ltd has decided to phase out imports over a period of 5-6 years, the Coal Ministry said on Monday.

According to the government, Coal India imports high-capacity equipment such as electric rope shovels, hydraulic shovels, dumpers, crawler dozers, drills, motor graders, front-end loaders wheel dozer, continuous miners equipment and others worth around Rs 3,500 crore and pays Rs 1,000 crore as custom duty, incurring heavy expense on purchasing machinery through importing.

"Therefore, it has been planned to phase out import over the period of next five to six years by encouraging and developing domestic equipment manufacturers' capabilities. Some of the high-capacity machines are presently under trial procurement from domestic manufacturers," the Coal Ministry said.

The CIL has undertaken extensive standardisation of the mining equipment to be deployed with an objective to ensure that wherever possible domestic manufactured equipment is put into coal production, transportation, and monitoring without affecting the productivity.

The government has also decided to utilise the non-functional and under-utilised government infrastructure facilities like the Mining and Allied Machinery Corporation (MAMC), Jessops under the 'Make in India' initiative.