Private coal producers told to pull up socks to boost production

Coal Secretary Sumanta Chaudhuri calls upon allottees to go extra mile with govt to operationalise the mines

Taking serious note on the delay of operationalising allotted blocks, coal secretary Sumanta Chaudhuri exhorted the allottees to take steps to start the mines and enhance coal production in the country.

“While on the one hand the Central and state governments embark on ease of doing business, it is equally imperative that all the coal block allottees also pull up their socks,” Chaudhuri said at a stakeholder consultation meet organised by Ministry of Coal in collaboration with FICCI in Raipur today.

Highlighting a few cases related to the issues being faced by the coal sector, he said it was often found that the applications that coal producers provided were not duly filled and were therefore regarded as incomplete. He asserted that this problem was well within the coal allottees' reach and they ought be able to resolve it.

“There is a certain degree of comfort that all coal block allottees have been used to, since almost all of them have coal linkages,” Chaudhuri said, adding that as long as the producers had coal linkages there was no need  to operationalise the blocks. However, if all the allottees were to simply lean on coal linkages and allow their blocks to lie idle, there was simply no way that the production of coal in this country would pick up. Therefore there would always be a gap between demand and supply.

Asserting that Coal India Limited (CIL) cannot alone meet the ever increasing demand for the fuel in  the country, the coal secretary asserted: “So you need to pull up your socks and need to ensure that you go that extra mile along with the government in operationalising these blocks.”

Choudhuri said the ministry of coal has taken a slew of policy decisions to support the coal producers and operationalise the mines at the earliest.