'Flexible use of coal by power plants led to saving of Rs 646 cr '

The flexible use of domestic coal by power plants has resulted in savings of Rs 646 crore in the April-February period of the ongoing fiscal.
"Indicative savings due to aggregation of linkages is Rs 645.77 crore (Provisional) for coal supply during current (financial) year up to Feb'18," an official source said.
The government had earlier relaxed norms for utilisation of domestic coal and said that the move will help bring down the cost of power generation by 40 to 50 paise per unit and eventually lead to yearly savings of up to Rs 30,000 crore in the next 4-5 years.

"After aggregation, GenCo (generation company) based coal indicative average price for calculation of incentive has been taken as Rs 1,182 per tonne," the official source said.
Under the flexibility of utilisation of domestic coal, power utilities have the flexibility to use their coal in any of the power plants.
In this regard, all the states and central power utilities have signed supplementary agreements with Coal India and its arms for aggregation of their long-term coal linkages.
Many state/central power utilities have also started implementing the scheme by utilising their coal in their more efficient power plants, the Central Electricity Authority had earlier said.