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The Power Ministry is refusing to get involved in the debate on Rs 3,000-crore loss that Coal India may face if it implements coal pool pricing mechanism.
Coal Secretary S.K. Srivastava had forwarded the Coal India independent directors’ concern to his counterpart in the Power Ministry P. Uma Shankar seeking his response.
“We have received the Coal Ministry’s communication and would respond to it shortly,” Uma Shankar told Business Line .
A senior official at the Power Ministry said that the Ministry would not get into an “internal matter of a company Board”.
“This is a strange situation and the nodal Ministry should respond to it. Of course, pool pricing would apply to power producers and Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has been involved in sorting out a viable model. But, the Power Ministry cannot comment on Coal India’s independent directors,” he explained.
The most contentious issue, other than losses, raised by independent directors is that agreeing to the CEA proposal would result in supplying subsidised imported coal to power companies, which is not legal.
The Power Ministry is understood to be drafting a reply to the Coal Secretary’s letter where it would mention about the Presidential directive for supplying coal to power producers. Pool pricing is a temporary mechanism to mitigate the shortfall till end of 12th Five-Year Plan.
The CEA would not favour any power producer by offering cheaper imported coal neither would it cause losses to Coal India.
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