Coal news and updates

Ministry tells Coal India not to rush with fuel supply pacts

Coal ministry, facing a CBI probe over block allocation and missing files, has told Coal India not to act in haste in meeting deadlines under the presidential directive for the much-awaited fuel supply agreements (FSAs).
 
The ministry has told the company that it should properly verify the status of power plants before promising coal supply. This may further delay FSAs with several power producers who have been waiting for the assured 80% coal supplies committed by the national coal miner. Last month, Rahstrapati Bhawan observed that progress in signing of FSAs was not satisfactory.
 
In response, Coal Secretary SK Srivastava said: "It may be appreciated that sufficient reasonable time has to be given to Coal India to ensure a thorough verification. It may also, in this connection, be relevant to mention that CBI has started investigating into issues not only related to allocation of coal blocks but also related to procedures and processes being observed by the ministry and Coal India subsequent to the allocation.
 
Hence, while putting sufficient pressure on management of Coal India to expedite signing of FSAs, we do not want to give any opportunity to any official to deliberately or otherwise by pass the procedures under the guise of meeting deadlines." He added that coal ministry was dealing with a sensitive sector and hence all is issues need to be thoroughly examined and scrutinized before final decisions are taken and this is relevant not only with regard to signing of FSAs but also on all other pending cases in the ministry of coal.
 
"Ours is a small ministry and the officers are quite overburdened with a lot of issues connected with Supreme Court, CBI investigations, CAG reports, PAC, Standing Committees, etc," said the ministry.

Source: The Economic Times