Coal news and updates

Ministries of coal and power are at loggerheads over seven coal blocks that remain unused nine months after these mines were handed over to power ministry for use of power plants, a person close to the development told ET.

While power ministry has demanded all environment and forest clearance before allotting the mines having total capacity of nearly 46.3 million tonnes per annum to companies, coal ministry has said clearances can be obtained only by companies that are allotted these blocks, the person said. "What power ministry has asked is actually opposite of what happens. Environment and forest clearances are obtained by the company which has been allotted the coal mine. These projects are not on plug and play mode," the person said.

 

"There is no clarity of the allotment. And coal ministry wants the process to be wrapped up as early as possible," the source said. Coal ministry had given these mines to power ministry under Coal Mines (Special Provision) Ordinance 2014, in September last year on the basis of recommendations of a technical committee set up for identifying coal blocks for power projects. The power ministry has cited difficulties in getting environment and forest clearances for not allocating the mines. "Power ministry has delayed the mine allocation process only because it wants to hand them over along with all the clearances to generate interest among the takers and facilitate power usage," said a ministry official in the know of the matter said.

The first person, however, said, "Even if the power ministry decides to go ahead with getting clearances before allocation, there are no present guidelines to do so." The person further said it was unclear how the ministry plans to allocate these mines. While initially they were thought to be given under discom revival scheme UDAY to states, later the ministry said these could also be given to central PSUs. The power ministry official said, "Initially there was confusion regarding the mines which further delayed the allocation process. While it was thought that the blocks were to be given to UDAY states, it was later made clear that it was not linked to UDAY. Power ministry is also mulling to give the mines to CPSUs."

Source: Economic Times