After announcing Coal block linkage auction, the Ministry is ready to take the next step by introducing policy & road map of auction by 30 June’15.
An interactive session conducted by Coal Consumer Association of India (CCAI) was held on 5 Apr’15 in Kolkata. Many government authorities including Sutirtha Bhattacharya,Chairman, CIL, Anil Swarup, Secretary, Ministry of Coal and others took part in the session.
In the session held by CCAI, the Chhattisgarh Sponge Iron Association asked Mr. Swarup, whether it was feasible for them to participate in coming Coal linkage auction with Cement manufacturers.
He replied that linkage auction will take place sector wise and the ministry will make sure to conduct a transparent linkage auction for all sectors.
After the successful completion of the auction of 31 coal blocks and allotments of 38 blocks, now the government is planning to auction Coal block linkage, sector wise, and is likely to unfold/reveal methods of linkage auction by this June. The ministry believes that presently, Coal linkages distribution is irrational & disorganized for regulated as well as non-regulated sectors like Steel, Cement, and Power. The government is now looking forward to fair distribution of linkage as per the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court on Sep‘14.
The ministry is also planning for commercial mining in which state entities will mine & distribute Coal to state based units. Decision about commercial mining will be taken during the last phase of auction. The Coal blocks policy will be clear after Coal linkage auction.
After 2008, Indian government stopped providing any linkage to end use plants on the basis of Fuel Supply Agreement (FSA).The FSA pricing structure was unorganized and witnessed a lack of transparency in sector wise distribution of Coal.
Steel ministry also questioned that why the unregulated did sectors get Coal subsidy at 40-50%, when the price of their final products is market derived; and on the contrary, their competitors were not facilitated with linkages.
Updates of Ministry of Coal (31 Mar’15)
Standing Linkage Committee (LT) recommended that those who were getting supplies on tapering basis on the date of SC Judgment (24Sep’14), should continue to get supplies of same quantity till 30 June’15.
Leave a Reply