CIL resumes supply to NTPC units in east after three days

Supply had been suspended after NTPC had held back payment of Rs 1,000 crore

State-owned energy giant Coal India Ltd (CIL) and NTPC  have agreed to a truce, as CIL has resumed supply of coal to some of the latter's units in eastern part of the country after a three-day suspension.

The issue has been resolved for the time being following a meeting between the two. We have resumed supply to those units since yesterday,” Eastern Coalfields (ECL) general manager, technical, Niladri Roy told Business standard.

ECL had earlier suspended supply to 5000 MW generating facility, after NTPC held back payment of about Rs 1000 crore. NTPC's units in Farakka and Kahalgaon got affected due to suspension of supply. NTPC has raised questions over quality of the coal supplied to it.

“As per the Fuel Supply Agreement, there is supposed to be a joint grade analysis of the coal supplied. But for some reason NTPC stopped partcipating in that since October, 2012 and unilaterally stopped paying the dues since then. The process of grade analysis is being resumed now,” Roy said.

NTPC officials, however, could not be contacted despite several attempts.

However, the dues that ECL claimed to be over Rs 1000 crore, is yet to be repaid. There is likely to be a meeting between top-level management of the two central PSUs to discuss the dues.

Incidentally, NTPC's demand for certain quality of coal has been one of the major bottlenecks for signing the pending FSAs between the two.

The NTPC plants, that had come on stream since March 2009, but for which FSAs are yet to be signed have cumulative generation capacity of over 8,500 MW.