Poor Coal Research Flayed

Taking a strong exception to the under-utilisation of the funds allocated for R&D for developing the coal industry, the committee said reasons like problem in procurement of equipment, lack of coordination and shortage of research personnel cited by the ministry for the low utilisation, were untenable.

Though the budgetary provision for the first four years of the eighth plan was Rs 47.80 crore, only Rs 12 crore was utilised for carrying out R&D, said the report tabled in Parliament last week.

Commenting on the ministry's practice of not surrendering the unutilised funds at the end of the financial year.

The committee, headed by BJP MP Jagmohan, hoped that funds provided for R&D activities would be utilised and the targets achieved.

 

Urging the ministry to step up R&D activities to achieve major thrust areas like production and utilisation as identified in the eighth plan, the committee said involving coal companies would help this process.

The standing committee also suggested a joint action plan to be drawn up by the government and coal companies to speed-up the on-going and future projects.

Pointing out that the failure of coal companies to invest in projects during the last three years due to non-availability of funds, was likely to have an adverse impact, the committee stressed on their early implementation.

through inflow of required resources from the plan outlays.

Recovery of both, disputed and undisputed dues from the power sector consumers is another important issue facing the ministry. Since Coal India is facing a resource crunch, recovery of such dues would help the industry to a great extent, the report said.

The committee found the budget support for 1995-96 has been raised from Rs 241 crore to Rs 288 crore in case of Coal India Limited. However, it expressed serious concern over the declining internal extra budgetary resources which came down from Rs 2019 crore to Rs 1291.57 crore during 1995-96. CIL's capital would be restructured, as has been decided by the ministry of coal, to improve the financial health of the company and would enable it to raise the necessary resources for investments in coal projects, the report said.