Journalism of Courage
The coal ministry has said that it would auction of unexplored coal blocks by January and successful bidders would be given Letter of Comfort by the environment ministry to minimise hurdles for them.
Addressing a roundtable on coal mining organised by industry chamber CII on Friday,coal secretary SK Srivastava sought to allay the apprehensions of prospective bidders saying there would also be an exit route without any penalty after a period of two years if the requisite clearances fail to materialise.
He told the participants that the general agreement within the coal ministry is on production-linked payment,but the Cabinet would take a final call on the matter.
Over 20 coal blocks with nearly 3 billion tonne reserves would be offered to cement,power and steel companies for captive use. The comfort letters are a provisional clearance for the blocks but fall short of being a legally enforceable document a compromise worked out at the behest of Pulok Chatterji,principal secretary to the Prime Minister.
With a view to supplementing Coal Indias output,the finance ministry has commenced a pilot project to draft the modalities of bidding documents for selection of mine-developers and operator for certain mines of the company.
On the issue of signing fuel supply agreements (FSAs),Coal India has executed 140 FSAs out of the targeted 170 for enabling generation of 78,000 MW capacity.
CIL chairman S Narsing Rao said for some companies there are issues which are impacting singing of the agreements.
