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An inter-ministerial panel will on Friday decide on the contentious issue of coal supply to NTPC’s coming North Karanpura super thermal power project in Jharkhand.
The issue relates to the power producer’s demand to increase the committed annual coal supply for the 1,980-Mw project 30% to 10.2 million tonnes (mt). However, state-owned miner Coal India Ltd (CIL) claims the current commitment of supplying seven mt is in line with norms.
In 2008, the coal ministry had withdrawn fuel linkages for the Rs 10,000-crore plant, following a tiff with the power ministry over its location. While NTPC had planned to set up the project in Jharkhand’s Chatra district, the ministry contended this would render useless six billion tonnes of coal reserves located underneath. In September 2011, a ministerial panel constituted a committee, under the chairmanship of Planning Commission member B K Chaturvedi, to look into the issue. In February this year, the Union Cabinet decided against relocating the project, directing the plant be provided coal linkage.
The coal ministry restored the linkage in May and Central Coalfields Ltd, a subsidiary of CIL, granted a letter of assurance for the project, specifying an annual contracted quantity of seven mt of E-grade coal a year.
Following this, the power ministry took up NTPC’s concern that the restored linage quantity was less than the amount provided originally. Central Coalfields, however, says the letter-of-assurance quantity has been fixed at 90% of the requirement, or the normative quantity calculated following the power ministry’s guidelines for power companies.
