The Prime Minister's Office on Friday asked state-owned
CIL to scale down the minimum assured supply level of coal to 65 per cent of the commitment under fuel supply pacts with power companies.
The PSU firm has also been asked to go in for coal imports through the state-owned agencies like the STC and MMTC, sources said.
Earlier a Presidential directive was issued in April, after the PMO's intervention, asking Coal India Ltd (CIL) to commit a minimum of 80 per cent of
fuel supply to power projects .
CIL had its way in terms of making much less commitment for assured supply of 65 per cent for the first three years of the fuel supply agreements (FSAs).
But in the fourth year, the supply has to increase to 72 per cent followed by 80 per cent in the fifth year of the agreements, sources added.
However, the company will have to pay damages, equivalent to 10 per cent of the value of the shortfall in supply to the power producers. Besides, there would be no moratorium on payment of penalty.
The directions to the
monopoly supplier CIL were given after Pulok Chatterjee, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, took a meeting of Coal Secretary S K Srivastava and CIL Chairman and Managing Director S Narsing Rao.
CIL which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production will take the PMO directions before its board, which is likely to meet next month.
CIL, which missed the revised production target last fiscal and produced 435 million tonnes of coal, has set a production target of 464 MT for 2012-13.
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