GEB, SECL sign memo on sampling

According to GEB chairman Nalin Bhatt, the Board had been holding meetings with the SECL for the past several months and had had to seek the chief minister8217;s intervention to persuade the Calcutta-based colliery to agree to a joint sampling.

A memorandum of understanding was finally signed on Saturday, according to which the coal supplied will be sampled jointly by the company and the GEB when the rakes arrive at the receiving stations.

The practice had come to a stop in 1993, when the SECL unilaterally decided to stop the joint sampling of coal on the grounds that it was being sampled at the sender8217;s end.

And soon after, according to Bhatt, the quality of coal supplied to the GEB started to deteriorate, so much so that the supplies were found to contain stones. As a result, the overheads of the thermal power stations rose quickly while the bad quality coal affected the plants8217; operations, which had a direct impact on the power supply.

The GEB was represented by executive directors P K Das and M C Gandhi and Kandarp Patel and Dhurandhar from the finance department at Saturday8217;s meeting.