Coal India Ltd (CIL) on Tuesday said that it has started the online process of signing fuel supply pacts with its various clients including those in the power sector to ensure ease of business.

With this move, CIL has discontinued with the earlier practice of physical submission of official papers, while bank guarantees and other required documents can be submitted through digital mode.

"Coal India Ltd, in a first ever, introduced online signing of fuel supply agreements (FSA) for power as well as non-regulated sector customers participating under linkage based auctions," the company said in a statement.

To ensure ease of business, CIL said, it has also cut down the number of documents that were required to be submitted.

"The online signing of FSAs for linkage auctions...Evades the cumbersome process of physical submission of voluminous documents. It ushers in greater customer ease as they can conduct the entire process from their place of work without having to visit the coal companies," a senior executive of the company said.

Previously, in case of any discrepancy in documents, customers had to visit the company to get them rectified. Now, this can be done online.

CIL signs hundreds of FSAs annually necessitating maintenance of bulky documents. The electronic arrangement makes the upkeep much easier.

Since the documents are stored digitally, tracking the status of progress also gets simplified at supplier and customer ends.

Among non-regulated sectors so far, nearly 700 FSAs have been formalised online for a total of about 19 million tonnes of coal supply.

In case of power sector 262 FSAs have been signed digitally till now for a total quantity of around 24 MT.

Coal India accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal output.