NEW DELHI: Piyush Goyal, Union minister of state for coal (independent charge), said on Wednesday that the government was in the process of opening up the coal sector to competition soon. Private miners would be coming into the sector to bring in competition, he added. The minister said the country has achieved an important milestone of having adequate quantity of coal and the next step is to achieve quality and preventing grade slippages.
“From April 1, fresh grades of coal have been issued for each mine and coal dispatch centre. With this step, the grade slippage in coal supplied to consumers will become minimum,” said Susheel Kumar, secretary, coal.
As a result, the ministry expects the grade slippage in coal supplied to consumers to be minimum. “In case the grade slippage exceeds the determined cap, senior officials will be held responsible for it,” Kumar added.
Goyal said there has been a reduction of eight per cent in the per unit coal consumption for power generation, which is a significant achievement in the country’s history.
On Wednesday, Goyal presided over the inaugural session of the day-long workshop on ‘Quality of Coal’. “We are working towards bring linearity in pricing of coal between lower and higher grades,” said Goyal.
Goyal added that the Tamil Nadu government has agreed to set up the Cheyyur ultra mega power project based on domestic coal instead of imported coal.
“The move will help in achieving self-reliance on domestic coal based thermal power in India and would generate confidence in our own capacities.”
He added that the ministry would soon develop a whistleblower mechanism to address the complaints of the coal grade slippages and to rein in corruption in the coal and power sectors.
