Ministry issues draft rules allowing CCO to regulate proposed coal exchange

The government has come out with draft rules to form an organisation to regulate the functioning of the proposed coal exchange that will facilitate the trading of coal as a commodity.

The proposed Coal Controller Organisation (CCO) will be a subordinate office of the coal ministry. Its responsibilities include coal mine closure activities to ensure environmental sustainability, collecting and disseminating coal statistics, inspecting collieries, issuing directives on coal grades, and acting as an appellate authority for grade-related disputes.

"Ministry of coal proposes to appoint the Coal Controller Organisation (CCO) to register and regulate the coal exchange(s) to be established in the country," says the draft coal exchange rules, 2025 on which the ministry has invited comments from stakeholders by mid-October.

The operations of the coal exchange would broadly be government by the regulations made by CCO.

The draft further said that the recent policy reforms in the coal sector has resulted in selfsufficiency and increased availability of the dry fuel in the country.

Coal production is poised to reach new heights with the country already breaching one billion tonne of production mark in the last fiscal and likely to grow beyond 1.5 billion tonne by 2030.

With the increased availability of domestic coal in the country, it is expected that there would be a paradigm shift towards a surplus coal scenario and resultantly the sales scenario is likely to undergo a major change from the existing mechanisms of sales channels, necessitating a major market reform backed by a regulatory mechanism.

"Therefore, in the scenario of increased availability of domestic coal in the country, further reforms are being carried out in the coal sector with focus on promoting competitive markets for sale of coal, and thus, the coal ministry proposes to establish Coal Exchange (s) under the...enabling provisions of the MMDR Amendment Act, 2025," the draft said.