Coal Consumers' Association ups heat on CIL

As the Centre government will review the state-run Coal India Ltd’s (CIL) shift to the gross calorific value (GCV) pricing, the Coal Consumers’ Association of India (CCAI) has said that though it is not against the GCV system, CIL should maintain international standard too which the firm is not following.

The Kolkata-based firm had shifted to the new price regime since January 1 on an experimental basis for a period of three months and was planning to review it by the end of this financial year.

However, after widespread protests from the power and non-power sectors, the Union Coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal had reportedly said, “Price fixed by them (Coal India), in my opinion, is more than required.” The ministry is set to review the pricing on Friday.

“We are waiting for the response from the government after the review meeting. We are not against the GCV regime but CIL should maintain the international standard and also should give 100 per cent washed coal. They should have a proper sampling process and bomb calometres should be implemented in all collieries. The price was increased by an average of 60 per cent,” said P K Chand, President of CCAI and chief financial officer of Birla Corporation.

Training guns on the coal major, past chairman of CIL and the Director of Shyam Group of Industries, Sashi Kumar said, “The firm was lacking in physical performance for the last two years, now they are trying to cover it up with financial performance. Hence, we want the government to implement coal regulator, inorder to stop this unilateral price rise.”As per the new pricing regime, there will be 17 slabs of prices, while the discount to the power sector would be between 25 to 77 per cent.

The slabs are divided on the basis of a bandwidth 300 kilo calories (kcal) per kilo gram each starting from 2,200 kcal to 7,000 kcal and above 7,000 kcal. While the power sector will not enjoy sops for the first five from 5800 kcal to those above 7000 Kcal, discounts will be available for the remaining bandwidths.