Calcutta: Sarda Energy and Minerals, a Chhattisgarh-based firm, is hopeful of shipping coal from Indonesia to India in the next six to eight months.

The coal-mining project had faced a delay of almost 5-6 years in order to acquire land and obtain approvals and clearances.

SEML's subsidiary - Sarda Global Ventures Pte - has formed a joint venture to execute the project.

The licence area is 10,000 hectares and the company has acquired 125 hectares and is looking to extract coal in a planned manner.

"There were initial hiccups and the project was struggling for almost 5-6 years. In Indonesia, it is mostly palm plantations and landowners are usually wealthy. There were question marks on the fate of the project, but we stuck with it and mining has now started," Manish Sarda, director, Sarda Energy and Minerals told The Telegraph.

"It will take some time to arrange the logistics and obtain necessary permissions, but we are hopeful that in the next six to eight months, we would be able to ship coal back to India," he said.

The company hopes to receive around 4 lakh tonnes of power grade coal from the Indonesian mining project, which would be used primarily for its captive power plant in Vizag under Sarda Metals and Alloys, a subsidiary of the company.

"Although of low quality, the coal is still power grade. The shipment would arrive at Vizag port and would be mostly used for our captive power generation at Vizag. Being located close to the port, it makes sense to use imported coal," said Sarda.

The BSE and NSE listed company is also engaged in the manufacture of iron ore pellets, sponge iron, steel billets, wire rods and power generation from hydroelectric sources.

The company has registered a turnover of Rs 354.1 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2017, a growth of 23 per cent over the year-ago period. Net profit during the quarter was Rs 34.4 crore compared with Rs 11.2 crore a year ago.