Coal news and updates

Govt working on new MDO pact to ease coal production

January 20: The government is working on a draft mine developer-cum-operator (MDO) agreement in order to remove certain one-sided clauses in the existing agreements, Secretary (Coal) Anil Swarup has said.

“There is certainly greater requirement of MDOs if you look at the 1 billion tons production target of CIL -- because I don’t think any single entity will be able to do it. The Government of India is working on a draft MDO agreement which we will share with the state governments and we would welcome inputs,” Swarup said during an interaction in Kolkata.

In fact, chambers could send solutions and suggestions to the ministry, which would be duly considered, he said.

“If I were you, I would rather draft an agreement and send to the ministry, saying this should be the agreement ….  Why only suggestions?” he added.