The coal ministry has opposed a
suggestion by the Planning Commission that they be allowed to sell surplus
dry-fuel.
“The value of the mineral held by the captive
coal holders is very high in terms of today's prices and block holders will be
unduly benefited if permitted to sell coal. If the suggestion of the Planning
Commission is agreed then it will pave the way, allowing captive block holders
to make huge profits,” coal ministry has said in reply to the Plan panel.
Contending that only 28 coal
blocks out of 193 alloted to various power, steel and cement firms in the past
18 years for captive use have come to production, the ministry is of the view
that if they are permitted to sell coal they would not show interest in
bringing up their end use plants.
“If a part of these reserves
are diverted block holders would again turn to government for making
available equivalent amount of reserves for meeting their requirements sometime
in future after extracting profit from reserve if they start selling coal,
they would never show interest in bringing up end use plant,” the coal ministry
said.
“The Ministry also disagreed with
the panel's suggestion of increasing the prices of domestic coal to partially
meet the high generation cost, saying it will go against the spirit of power
sector reforms.”
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