LONDON: World"s largest coal mining compnay, Coal India Limited, warns that price hike of supplies in long-term deals is “inevitable” to combat higher costs and protect profitability, Bloomberg reported. This happens as the company witnesses pressure from high oil prices and the rise in employees’ salaries from July. The “coal-price increase is something where we have to bring all stakeholders on board. That process is on,” Chairman Pramod Agrawal said on a conference call to Bloomberg. “Everybody understands that we have reached a point where coal price increase has become inevitable,” he added. The fuel amounts to around 70 percent of India’s electricity generation, which makes the economy affected by higher prices.