Coal news and updates

New linkage policy for power sector in a month: Swarup

The government is working on framing a new coal linkage policy for the power sector under which even non-linkage consumers might be able to get supplies and the existing linkage holders may get slightly higher quantities of the fuel, Coal Secretary Anil Swarup said on February 24.

“A new linkage policy for the power sector is under consideration of the government and it should come in about a month’s time,” Swarup said.

The new policy is being considered in view of higher availability of domestic coal in recent months, he said.

“The linkages were restricted because we had shortage of coal. Now that we don’t have shortage of coal, why should these be restricted? The restriction came because of the shortage. Otherwise, it is our duty to supply the entire requirement of coal to the power sector,” he said.

As per the current policy, CIL supplies up to 75% of the normative coal requirement of power plants which came up between April 2009 and March 2015. The power plants in operation before April 2009 get 85% of their normative coal requirement.

“May be, in a month’s time, we should be able to announce a policy for such entities which do not have linkages,” Swarup said.