KOLKATA: Coal India will seek advice from the prime minister’s office through the coal ministry on how to go about signing fuel supply agreements with power units commissioned between January 2012 and March 2015.
“We will ask the government on how to go about signing FSAs with plants that have come up after December 2011 and will be put up till March 2015. We will send our queries to the coal ministry which may take it up with the PMO’s office,” Coal India Chairman S Narsing Rao told ET.
The move assumes significance because the prime minister’s office had asked Coal India to sign FSA with plants that have come up after April, 2009 and will be set up till March, 2015 by March 2012.
Coal India board, however, failed to take a decision and subsequently received a presidential directive that asked it to sign FSAs for plants that have come up between April 2009 and December 2011. The presidential directive, however, did not mention anything about plants that came up after January, 2012.
Coal India board followed the presidential directive in every word and invited companies for signing agreements for plants that were commissioned prior to December 2011. It took no decision for units that were commissioned since then and will be commissioned till March 2015.
According to a ministry estimate, some 40,000 MW of power generation capacities are to come up during this period under question. “It will require about 170 million tonnes of additional coal per year,” a CIL official said.
“We would want to know by when and how will these new set of FSAs have to be signed? Will they be the same as the ones we are now signing for plants prior to December 2011 and would there be a deadline by which we will have to complete these,” the official said.
“As of now plants that have already commissioned after December 2011 is being supplied coal on the basis of memorandum of understanding that was signed with CoalIndia. This will continue till FSAs are signed with these plants,” he said.
The CIL management is, however, not sure if the same of set of FSAs that it is signing with existing power plants can be used for the new ones or if it will have to prepare another set of FSAs.