Government to review current coal distribution policy

03 Aug 2011 Evaluate

Due to the increasing demand and supply gap, the Indian government is reviewing the present coal distribution policy in order to ensure supply of fuel to the priority sectors. On the issue of fuel shortage for power companies, the Coal Minister Prakash Jaiswal said that coal production has not increased in line with the demand. There are various reasons for this, by adding further he said, coal producing states are facing different problems like law and order and naxalism.

The government has been trying to give connection to coal blocks for development of power projects. The state-owned Coal India (CIL) has failed to meet the increasing demand and it has requested coal ministry to review the coal distribution policy. On this the coal minister said we are looking into it. However, he said “CIL has been dispatching coal as per targets fixed in the supply plan finalized as part of the annual plan. During the last three years, dispatches to power utilities have been 102%, 96% and 91% of the targets respectively”.  In the current year up to June 2011, dispatch is 94% of the target.

'Dispatches could have been better but for the frequent law and order problems... constraints of wagon availability in comparison to indents in certain coal fields in the 3rd and 4th quarter of the previous year,' he added.

However, the minister assured that there would be no shortage of coal at the power stations. The coal reserve with the power station has increased compared to last year. In July 2011 the coal stock with power station was 13.415 million tonnes up from 11.63 million tonnes in July 2010. “Coal is under Open General License (OGL) and the power utilities import coal themselves to meet their requirements”, coal minister said.

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