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New UserCoal Ministry opposes NITI Aayog’s draft Energy Policy
18 Oct 2016
Wary of losing Coal India’s pricing power, the Piyush Goyalled Ministry of
Coal has raised reservations over the draft National Energy Policy, which favours aligning
domestic coal prices with international rates. The lack of consensus between the Centre and
the ministry has delayed the policy, which has been in the works at NITI Aayog, the
government’s thinktank, for more than a year now.
“There has been severe opposition from the top coal ministry officials to the policy as they
don’t want markets to determine prices of coal in India,” a senior government official told ET
on condition of anonymity.
According to the official, the ministry is scared of this forwardlooking policy because it would
lose control over coal prices and would no longer be able to maximise profit for Coal India.
Coal secretary Anil Swarup declined to comment on the matter.
Staterun Coal India Ltd. is the country’s largest producer of the commodity, which it sells at
prices approved by the company board.
The company produces 84% of India’s coal, according to its website. Due to a combination of
lower international prices and inadequate domestic production, the value of India’s coal
imports touched a high of $17.8 billion in FY15. Higher domestic production in FY16 lowered imports to $13.7 billion.
NITI Aayog’s National Energy Policy is aimed at curbing imports by increasing production of renewable energy in the country fivefold to
300 billion units by 2019 and tripling coal production to 1.5 billion tonnes. Coal imports are envisaged to come down by 10% by 2022 and
by 50% by 2030.
“The draft National Energy Policy is ready and we have used the best possible inputs and the best possible expertise. We had extensive
discussions will all secretaries and it will be uploaded shortly,” NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant told ET.
According to Kant, once inputs have been provided by everyone, it is not necessary to reach a consensus on all issues. “NITI Aayog is a
thinktank. It must have differences.
If it were to have consensus on everything, NITI Aayog would have been miserably failing to do its job,” Kant said.
“We are advocating reforms, we are advocating changes, trying to push India to a higher growth trajectory and therefore differences are
necessary and are obvious.
Wherever there are differences, we’ll pose them before the Prime Minister and let him take a call. The final call is with the PM, who is also
the chairman of NITI Aayog,” Kant added.
Source:ET