HC appoints CIMFR to conduct third party coal sampling

Brushing aside vehement opposition of the public sector unit Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) to independent sampling of coal supplied to state-run power company MahaGenco, a Bombay High Court bench directed the Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR) to sample coal at the loading and unloading points.
Deploring the opposition of WCL to third party sampling, a division bench of Justice Bhushan Gavai and Justice Z A Haq of the Nagpur bench of the high court today expressed surprise over WCL's adversarial attitude to third party sampling.
"When WCL is so sure about its quality, why it is afraid of third party sampling at loading and unloading points," the High Court asked.

Reminding WCL and MahaGenco that supply of poor quality coal affecting energy production is matter of great public concern, the High Court directed CIMFR which is a public institution as per Article 12 of the Constitution to discharge its duty by sampling coal.
The HC came down heavily upon WCL's negative approach during the hearing of a public interest litigation filed by a local citizen, Anil Wadpalliwar, which slammed both MahaGenco and WCL for indulging in a turf war, making a mess of power generation.
According to the PIL, all consumers in Maharashtra are forced to pay more for power due to the lack of transparency in coal procurement, its transport, suspect quality and absence of any regulatory mechanism, besides the inability of WCL and MahaGenco to resolve their dispute, which is the primary reason for a steep hike in the cost of generating power due to less supply of domestic coal and import of costly coal by power utilities.