Cabinet may discuss coal price pooling next week

April 16 is likely date of CCEA meeting

The Cabinet is likely to meet again next week to discuss pooling the price of imported coal with the domestic fuel.     

"The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) may meet on April 16 to discuss coal price pooling," a source said.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said last week that the Cabinet will take a view on price pooling of coal to address the fuel supply issue.

Price pooling is the averaging of prices of domestic and imported coal to get a uniform feedstock price in the country.     

On the directions of CCEA, an inter-ministerial panel was formed under the Chairmanship of Coal Secretary S K Srivastava to looking into price pooling and coal linkages issue. The Cabinet had asked the Coal Ministry to back on the issue within five weeks, according to sources.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had in February approved in-principle coal price pooling but had asked coal and power ministries to come back with specifics of the proposal.     

The Prime Minister's Office had directed Coal India Ltd (CIL) and Central Electricity Authority (CEA) last year to work on price-pooling, so as to ensure 80 per cent supplies to power plants.

However, the final decision on the issue was pending for long due to differences between the Coal and Power Ministries on how the impact of higher imported coal prices will be shared between CIL and power companies.