CIL to sell coal under new sale policy

Kolkata, Jan 3 (UNI) Coal India Limited (CIL) will now sell coal under an interim coal sale policy following a nod from the Ministry of Coal, CIL sources here said today.

Consumers under new booking policy have been classified into two categories. The first category comprises of National Coal Consumers Federation (NCCF); Non-core linked consumers and state government agencies, who would get coal at 20 per cent over the notified price under a strict surveillance system and watchdog mechanism.

The other group would be non-linked consumers as well as linked consumers for coal requirement beyond their linked quantity. This group would have to pay 30 per cent more than the notified price.

There is no end use restriction for coal supplied under this category, CIL authorities said.

Coal will be offered in lots and the booking shall continue up to a maximum of two hours or exhaustion of offered quantity, which ever is earlier. However, if the quantity is exhausted in less than 15 minutes the booking shall remain open for at least 15 minutes and all customers who have booked coal within that period shall be allocated coal on prorata basis. The maximum quantity that can be booked by a bidder will not exceed more than one-third of the quantity offered for booking. A bidder will have to book a minimum quantity of a rake in case of rail booking and at least 50 tonne in case of road booking.

This system will continue up to 31 January this year.

Meanwhile, a Committee under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Ministry of Coal would be constituted to deliberate and evolve a policy for distribution of coal.

The Chairman, Coal India Limited and CMD, CMPDIL a consultancy arm of CIL will be members of the committee. Joint secretary, Ministry of coal will be Member Secretary and the committee would have as its members, not below the rank of Joint Secretary, officials from Ministries of Power, Steel, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Commerce, Finance, Law and Small Scale Industries.

UNI