The experimental determination of higher heating value (HHV) of solid fuels is a cost intensive process, as it requires special instrumentation and highly trained analyst to operate it, where as proximate analysis data can be obtained relatively easily using an ordinary muffle furnace. Therefore, to simplify the task and to reduce the cost of analysis many correlations were developed for determining HHV from proximate analysis of solid fuels. An attempt has been made in this paper to evaluate the applicability of these correlations with a special focus on Indian coals. It has been observed that the developed correlations are either complex in nature or by-pass the effect of important variables like moisture and ash contents of coals. An effort has, therefore, been made to develop a simple correlation based on proximate analysis data for predicting HHV of coal (as-received basis). The model presented here is developed using analyses of 250 coal samples and its significance lies in involvement of all the major variables affecting the HHV. The developed model appears to be better than the existing models and has the following form: HHV = -0.03(A) -0.11 (M) + 0.33(V-M) + 0.35(F-C). (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.