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The Centre has assigned a Dhanbad-based government laboratory the task of scrutinising the quality of India's domestic coal in a bid to curb disputes between coal suppliers and thermal power plants across the country.

The Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR) under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will serve as an independent third-party assessor of coal quality under a tripartite pact signed by representatives of coal suppliers and companies that use coal to generate power.

"We've been discussing the need for a robust mechanism for sampling, testing, and reporting the quality of coal," Piyush Goyal, the Union minister for power, coal, and new and renewable energy, said at a joint media conference with the Union science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan.

The pacts, he said, are expected to provide quality-assured coal to thermal power plants across India. The independent assessment by the CSIR-CIFMR will help minimise disputes on the quality of coal between coal suppliers and coal users, senior officials familiar with the initiative said.

"In recent years, some (thermal) power plants had noticed significant slippages in quality, they were being invoiced for high grade coal but supplied lower grade coal," said Ashok Khurana, director general of the Association of Power Producers.

The differences in perceptions about the coal supplied and coal received had led to a large number of disputes, a CSIR-CIMFR official said. Under the pact, the laboratory and its branches in Bilaspur, Nagpur, and Ranchi would screen samples of coal before they are shipped to power plants.

"This could have a huge positive financial impact on power companies," Khurana toldThe Telegraph. Various thermal power plants had been reporting up to 30 per cent of grade slippages, implying they were unhappy with the quality of coal they had received.

The quality of coal is determined by various parameters such as its calorific value (energy-yielding potential), ash content, and moisture content. Domestic coal is classified under 17 categories, with Grade 1 being the best coal with the highest calorific value, the lowest ash and moisture content, and Grade 17 being the worst coal with the lowest calorific value and the highest ash and moisture content, a senior CSIR-CIMFR official said.

"We've used a combination of physical and chemical technologies to develop an automated and reliable coal assessment system," said Pradeep Singh, director of the CSIR-CIMFR. Under the agreement, the laboratory estimates that samples representing about 300 million tonnes of coal would be analysed every year. The cost of testing itself is about Rs 8.50 per metric tonne which, Singh said, will not significantly add to the power bill.

But for the CSIR, the contract is expected to generate an annual revenue of about Rs 250 crore.

Source: Telegraph