In order to have a dedicated mechanism for domestic coal prices and compare it with international standards, Ministry of Coal has decided to develop a national coal index.
This index would be released bimonthly and would involve assessment of the domestic prices from various sources in the country.
The ministry has approved the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) that elaborates on the index’s methodology. Besides, the duties of the functionaries along with the timeline of index launch, has also been mentioned.
Responsibility of data collection and compiling of index:
Division of work
1. Coal Controllers’ Organisation (CCO) is made responsible for data collection pertaining to prices and compilation of the the index.
2.The statistical validation of data as per the Indian Statistical Institute’s given methodology has to be ensured along with the approval of Coal Ministry by 25th day of the month of publishing period.
3. Following this, the CCO would prepare a detailed technical note on the price movements with respect to each source, and send it to the coal ministry for approval.
4. The exercise of data compilation for coal index will be undertaken every second month in which the index is to be published.
The Coal Ministry’s role
The ministry would scrutinize the detailed technical note sent by CCO. The Coal Secretary would then finalise the proposed index latest by the 29th day and release it on the last day of the month of publishing period.
Advantage
The proposed index is likely to link the domestic prices with imported coal in order to arrive at a benchmark. The ministry has urged the authorities to adhere to the procedures and take immediate actions to initiate coal indexing.
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