Coal news and updates

WCL’s allocation ‘priority’ to co irks other users

May 8: Western Coalfields Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, while continuing with the revised coal allocation norms introduced in March 2015, seems to have decided to give “priority” to Birla Cellulosic, a unit of Grasim Industries, for the month of April, according to a circular and which is available with ICMW.

According to the circular, “Birla Cellulosic, which is paying 140% of the notified basic price towards purchase of coal, shall have priority in allocation of coal from the sources mapped for it over the other consumers (except small consumers).”

However, this move seems to have irked many sections of WCL’s other coal supply agreement (CSA) holders.

It may be recalled that, WCL, moving away from its existing norm, had introduced a new system for allocation of coal to holders of its coal supply agreements (CSAs) (other than power sector consumers) for the month of March, 2015.

According to this method, WCL had decided to allot on the basis of source, size/grade-wise quantity of coal available for allocation by road. Furthermore, consumers had been categorised into 29 groups based on their entitled size/grade of coal for release, location of the mines, location of the consumers and availability of the coal. The source and size/grade of coal the consumers were entitled to had also been indicated in a list. This basically denoted that WCL provided colliery-wise offered quantities, categorising into groups of customers with mapped sources for allocation.

In April, consumers were categorised into 25 groups based on their entitled grade/size, location of the mines and consumers and availability of coal.

There are 132 valid CSA holders at WCL, who had made applications for the release of 298,221 tons of coal for the month of March, 2015.