Clean energy cess hiked to Rs100/tn;CIL to pay upto Rs5200cr

State-owned Coal India (CIL) may have to shell out up to Rs 5,200 crore on account of clean energy cess in this fiscal as the government today proposed to double the cess to Rs 100 per tonne.
The cess is presently levied on coal, peat and lignite to finance and promote clean energy initiatives and fund research in the area of clean energy.
"Coal India's offtake target for the current fiscal in 520 million tonnes (MT). If the company achieves the target, the company will have to shell out around Rs 5,200 crore on account of clean energy cess," a Coal India official said.

While presenting the Budget for 2014-15, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: "I propose to expand the scope of purposes of levying the said cess to include financing and promoting clean environment initiatives and funding research in the area of clean environment.
"To finance these additional initiatives, I propose to increase the Clean Energy Cess from Rs 50 per tonne to Rs 100 per tonne."
When asked whether coal consumers like power, steel and cement would pass on the rise to their end-users, the Coal official said, "It is for them to take a call."

The official further said that the company gave around Rs 2,500 crore to government as clean coal cess in the last fiscal.

The country began imposing clean-energy cess on raw coal and lignite in 2010.
Coal India accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production.