Already stung by the allegations of giving away coal blocks to several entities on nomination basis, a cautious Coal Ministry is on the verge of finalising a policy which would disallow captive block holders from diverting surplus fossil fuel for any other end usage, and rather putting it in use to plug the gap in demand and supply of the common man fuel.
Official sources confirmed to The Pioneer that a cabinet note notifying the ‘surplus coal’ policy is being given final touches – as comments from all concerned stake holding ministries have been received – and would soon be sent for Cabinet’s approval.
The Coal Ministry had come across cases where some captive block holders were found to be diverting excess fossil fuel from their reserves for usage in their other end-use projects, something which is not allowed as per rules.
At the same time the Government has been forced to import costly coal as there has been a mismatch between its output of the dry fuel and its domestic requirement. India’s coal consumption stood at 772.84 million tonnes as against the production of 557.60 million tonnes in 2012-13. This demand-supply gap is mainly met through imports from countries like Indonesia, South Africa and Australia.
It was to meet this twin problem of diversion of excess coal by block holders and to bridge the demand-supply gap, that the Government had decided to come out with the coal surplus policy.
In fact, a committee headed by Planning Commission Member BK Chaturvedi is also likely to come out with its recommendations soon on the matter.
Sources privy to the development however said that a mechanism suggested by the Chaturvedi panel – where coal from private mining companies can be stored by State-owned Coal India ltd (CIl) to meet its demand-supply gap and then returning the stock at a later date (termed as coal banking mechanism) – has been opposed both by the Coal Ministry as well as the Maharatna company.
The Coal Ministry is of the view that surplus coal policy and coal banking mechanism are two different aspects and should not be mixed with each other. It is rather keen to go ahead with finalising the surplus coal policy and therefore had moved the cabinet note for it in the first place.
The note had been circulated to various stake holding departments and ministries namely Finance, law, Steel, Power and Railways.
A view within the Government has now developed that why should so much money be spent on importing costly coal from abroad, when excess coal which is generated from various captive blocks (which is either diverted by block holders or goes waste) can be used in an optimum manner to meet domestic demand.
The formulation of such a policy can also be viewed in the aftermath of the coal blocks allocation scam, where a cautious UPA Government is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that not only blocks are auctioned in future (a process which is to begin from December this year) in a transparent manner, but also any discrepancy noticed in usage of the fossil fuel is to be dealt with firmly.