Raising objections to price- pooling of coal,West Bengal government has conveyed to CIL that such a mechanism is not acceptable to it. Coal India Ltd (CIL) had sought opinion of state governments on the issue. To offset the impact of high import costs,the Planning Commission had said that CIL should adopt a pooling formula on prices by combining rates of imported and domestic coal. "The West Bengal Government has recently written to Coal India stating that price pooling of coal was not acceptable to it," a CIL official said. Declining to elaborate,he said the state government has objected to the mechanism. Last month,CIL had written to all the states,barring Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh,seeking their opinion on whether they agree to the price pooling or not. The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) is also working on a price pooling mechanism. The CIL board had last month approved the modified fuel supply agreement (FSA) without price-pooling with 65 per cent domestic coal and 15 per cent imported coal at cost plus basis. So far,only 30 power companies,including Lanco and Adani have signed FSAs with CIL. The FSA has modifications in penalty,moratorium on penalty and some changes in force majeure clauses which were cleared by the board earlier. CIL Chairman and Managing Director Narsing Rao had said earlier that the PSU had written to power companies for their feedback on the mechanism. Rao had said that if price pooling was implemented,all the power consumers would have to bear the impact,adding that,however,it should be neutral to CIL.
