CIL offers 20 closed mines to private entities
In order to tide over the coal shortage, Coal India Ltd (CIL) will offer its 20 closed or discontinued underground coal mines to private entities even as India’s antitrust body conducted raids at several small mining services companies on Friday for allegedly colluding on prices while offering services to the world’s biggest coal miner.
The mines that Coal India intends to offer to the private sector are expected to provide 30-40 million tonnes of coal.
The extractable reserve in the closed or discontinued coal mines is around
380 million tonnes and 3040 million tonnes of coal can be easily extracted from the mines, said coal and mines minister Prahlad Joshi.
The continuation of mining activities will help in increasing coal supply to thermal power plants even as industrialised states like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have placed orders for imported coal for blending in thermal plants.
The Union minister said that the government’s aim is to increase domestic coal production to 1.2 billion metric tonnes by
FY24. “As a fuel, coal is the biggest contributor in the energy mix and the initiative will pave the way for deployment of the latest mining technology, robust systems and processes,” he said.
The Central government has also invoked an emergency law in a bid to start generation at some idle power plants running on imported coal which are not producing power because of financial stress or due to high international prices of coal, the government said on Friday.
The Centre had advised states to place orders to import coal for blending purposes in view of the
THE COMPETITION Commission of India conducted raids at several small mining services companies on Friday for allegedly colluding on prices while offering services to Coal India.
THE CENTRAL government has also invoked emergency provisions in the Electricity Act to start generation at some power plants, which stopped generation due to costly coal.
constraints in domestic coal supply to meet the increased demand. Early orders will help supply additional coal to power plants from the month of May 2022 itself.
Punjab and Gujarat are in the advanced stage of finalisation of the tenders. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh are in the process of issuing the tenders. Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand have not yet issued tender.
Union power minister R.K. Singh said that states need to take actions to ensure coal supply to their power plants by ensuring off-take in the Rail-Cum-Road (RCR) mode to meet the shortfall in coal requirement at their power plants. “If the states are not lifting the RCR coal, it would be deallocated and offered to other states. The states will be responsible for any shortages and consequent power-shortages,” “the minister said.