Clean cess to net Rs 2,150 cr from CIL

With the Centre’s clean energy cess on coal, Coal India (CIL) is set to pay a little over Rs 2,150 crore on it.

“The cess is expected to put additional burden on consumers. However, for funding clean technologies, the nation needs to get money from such sources. The company’s output will not grow this fiscal and is anticipated to stay near last year’s level of 431 million tonne. We will have to pay Rs 50 per tonne of cess,” said N C Jha, chairman and managing director (CMD) of the company, the world’s largest coal mining one.

The cess was introduced by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in his 2010 Budget to build a corpus for the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF). This Fund was for research and innovative projects in clean technologies. During the 2011-12 budget, Mukherjee said Rs 200 crore from the fund would be used as the Centre’s contribution for environmental remediation programmes. Another Rs 200 crore would be used for the Green India Mission.

Though Kolkata-based CIL will not witness an increase in output, it will see nearly 15% rise in profit after tax (PAT) to Rs 11,000 crore, as against Rs 9,600 crore during the last financial year.

“This additional revenue will come from the recent price revision and through the extra revenue from e-auction,” said Jha, on the sidelines of a Confederation of Indian Industry event here today. “Our average premium from e-auction is 56% more than the notified price.”

Production hasn’t risen, he said, because of some environmental and some law and order problems. “Production has dipped due to non-clearance of projects and no-go classification by the environment ministry,” he said. The ministry of environment and forests has put nine of its coalfields under the ‘no-go’ classification, currently under ministerial review.

Meanwhile, the CMD has denied reports that CIL employees who were barred by their unions from buying shares during the Initial Public Offering last year, may get a second chance to buy shares."I don’t think anything like that will happen," Jha said.