Govt decisions on coal auction not in sync with econ policy:HC

The Delhi High Court today observed that while the 2014 Coal Ordinance is completely in sync with the national economic policy, the "executive decisions" with respect to auction of coal "are not".
"What now emanates is that the ordinance is completely in sync with your economic policy, but your executive decisions are not. That is what we have gathered," a bench of justices B D Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva said.
It made the remark while noting that clubbing of core sectors like steel, cement and captive power plants under one head of unregulated sector, for the auctions, has resulted in lesser mines going to iron and steel companies.

The bench also questioned "what will happen to 'make in India' initiative" of the government if the steel companies will have to import coal for their production requirements.
The query was posed in response to Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain's argument that steel companies can import coal to meet requirements if they were unable to win adequate number of mines.
The bench, during the proceedings, also observed that currently the government is not deciding where (sector) coal will go, but market forces are and remarked that revenue generation was not objective of the ordinance whose mandate was allocation and optimum utilisation of the resource.

It also said that while power has other sources, like solar, wind, water, nuclear, etc., steel requires coal and asked the government whether it wanted steel production of the country to go down.

The ASG, on the other hand, contended that the government did not intend to distinguish between steel and other sectors and added that maximisation of revenue generated from allocation of coal mines was an integral part of the ordinance as "the natural resource can't be given away for a song".
He said by clubbing them together under unregulated they have been given the opportunity to bid for more mines and added "we are not distinguishing between core sectors".

The bench, however, observed "It (distinguishing) is happening. It is wrong that it has happened as it is contrary to your economic policy.