Concerned over various issues which have been affecting the country’s energy sector, the Cabinet Secretary A K Seth has summoned top officials from Coal, Petroleum and Power Ministries on May 10 to review and discuss the challenges being faced by big ticket projects in the respective ministries.
According to sources, Secretaries from the Ministries of Coal, Power and Petroleum would be meeting Cabinet Secretary A K Seth on Friday afternoon, to review all projects in the energy sector which are worth over Rs1,000 crores
The meeting, source said, is also likely to discuss contentious issues inadequate coal supplies to power plants and diminishing gas output of KG-D6 fields which has been affecting around 50-odd gas based power plants situated in the country.
The development comes in the backdrop of repeated concerns having been shown by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regarding bottlenecks in various infrastructure sectors. In order to remove obstacles being faced by several big ticket projects, the Government had set up the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) which was empowered to look into projects having investments of over Rs 1,000 crore.
Constant squabbles between Coal and Power ministries on various issues like price pooling of imported coal, inadequate fuel supplies to thermal plants and quality of the dry fuel, have led to a logjam between the two key ministries. Also several Coal India ltd (CIl) projects have been hanging fire owing to delay in environmental clearances.
With many of CIl’s reserves situated in densely forested areas, the Environment Ministry had put stringent conditions on their development. Though after repeated efforts within the Government, it was decided by a ministerial panel that CIl’s reserves would be cleared on a case-to-case basis, the earlier delay in their implementation has led to imbalance in coal production.
On the other hand, indifferent output being claimed by Reliance Industries ltd and its partner British Petroleum Plc from their flagship KG-D6 gas fields too has been a cause of concern for the Government, which has even set up a committee under former Finance Secretary Vijay Kelkar to suggest ways to augment oil and gas production.
In this light, Friday’s meeting assumes significance as all these issues are likely to be discussed threadbare. The meeting may also discuss ways to clear bottlenecks hurting high profile energy projects and may even review actions taken by CCI in addressing these concerns.