Government to slash the coal allocation to those who fail to utilize their allocated blocks

16 Aug 2011 Evaluate

The Indian government will slash the allocation of coal to companies that are not using the dry fuel for their promised projects. The government will cut the coal allocation of the non-serious power, steel and cement companies and would allocate the same to the companies whose projects are in the advance stage. 

This decision of government has come in wake of need to provide additional fuel to the power plants which are suffering from the coal shortage. Around 17,000 Mega Watt (MW) capacity projects are stuck due to coal shortage and another 5,593 MW power plants approved in 2009-10 are producing only 45 % to 50 % of their actual capacity.

A senior coal ministry official said that the stock taking becomes important in view of the coal crisis. The standing committee on long-term linkages would meet in October to review the projects. We have received complaints about companies that have taken linkages but have no end use project or have not achieved required milestones.'

Following the meeting of standing committee, the coal ministry would send notices to companies that are not utilizing or underutilizing the allocated coal. If companies are not able to provide convincing reasons then ministry would cancel the allocated coal. Earlier in the state of the current financial year, the coal ministry had canceled 15 mining licenses of coal and lignite blocks holding 1.5 billion tonne reserves.

The license of allocated coal and lignite blocks were canceled as the companies were not able to meet the milestones. The coal linkages are made to power plants cements and sponge iron units after examining factors like quantity and quality, time frame, location of consuming plants and transport logistics.

For the current financial year, coal ministry estimates 137 million tonne coal shortage, the government owned Coal India, which has reduced its production targets for the current financial year to 454 million tonnes from 461.5 million tonnes in last fiscal year. The coal India has reduced its production target mainly due to issue of forest clearance to coal mines.

Many Indian power companies are importing coal to meet the dry fuel requirement, however, prices of coal also has increased in international market, which is matter of concern for the big power stations, setup by the private companies
 

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