Govt may hike cess levied on coal production to boost pension corpus

Move to raise cess from Rs 10/tonne to Rs 25 aims to address pension fund shortfall

In a move to secure the post-retirement benefits of more than half a million pensioners of public-sector coal mines, the Centre is planning to raise the cess levied on coal production — the cess funds the pension corpus — from Rs 10 per tonne to Rs 25 per tonne. 

Senior government officials who attended the latest Board of Trustees (BoT) meeting of the Coal Mines Provident Fund Organisation (CMPFO) in Hyderabad on January 17 told Business Standard the matter was deliberated upon at length. 

“The idea of increasing the cess to support the pension pool was largely agreed upon. It