Examining request of Coal India to withdraw from ICVL: Govt

Government today said it is examining the request of state-owned CIL to withdraw from International Coal Ventures Ltd.
The Coal India Ltd board has decided that it should withdraw from ICVL and the "response of CIL is under examination in the Ministry of Coal", Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
A joint venture company under the Steel Ministry, ICVL is promoted by five PSUs -- CIL, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and NTPC. It was formed in 2009 to secure coal supplies from its acquired coal assets overseas.

The reasons for opting out of ICVL, the minister said, is that the JV is primarily focused on securing metallurgical coal for the captive consumption of constituent steel companies, while CIL's priority is to meet the nation's thermal coal demand.
ICVL was formed with an initial authorised capital of up to Rs 10,000 crore and an initial equity capital of up to Rs 3,500 crore to be contributed by the members.
CIL's share of equity capital in ICVL was Rs 1,000 crore (28.57 per cent). The shareholding pattern of the constituent partners SAIL and CIL is of 28.57 per cent each and for NMDC, RINL and NTPC it is 14.28 per cent each.

In another reply, the minister said that CIL has a plan of setting up 15 more washeries with a total capacity of 93.1 million tonnes per annum.
Out of the 15 proposed washeries, three are already under construction and the action has also been initiated for taking up the balance washeries.