India Allocates $4 Billion to Support Converting Coal to Gas

India launched a 375 billion rupees ($3.9 billion) plan to boost the industrial conversion of coal into synthetic gas, in a bid to reduce import dependence and shore up foreign exchange.

The country “has abundant coal reserves that can last for the next 200 years,” Information Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at a cabinet briefing on Wednesday. “We want to use that coal to produce gas.”