“We have short-listed Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Indonesia and Bangladesh for acquiring coal mines," Coal Secretary HC Gupta told reporters at an industry conference.

Gupta said India would import 35 million tonnes of coal in the financial year ending March 2007, about the same amount as it purchased last year, Reuters reported.

“We are looking at a production of 400Mt of coal in 2006-07, which is four times the size of the country's production 30 years ago," Gupta said.

He added coal consumption would reach an annual 1.2 billion tonnes by 2021.

“India's increasing need of coal provides an immense opportunity to investors as public and private sector companies are eager to help the country raise coal production,” he said.

State owned companies account for 90% of production.

“We have identified 140 blocks and 30 billion tonnes of reserves for captive use by the private sector.

Altogether 50 billion tonnes of reserves will be there for both public and private sectors for captive mining," Gupta said.