Power Minister to meet Coal Minister this week on fuel supply issue

Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia will meet Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal this week to discuss fuel supply issues, including price pooling.

"Power Minister Scindia will meet Coal Minister Jaiswal on April 18, a source told PTI, adding that "fuel supply issues, including price pooling," are likely to be discussed during the meeting.

The meeting of two ministers comes at a time when Coal India and power producer NPTC are at logger-heads over quality of coal being supplied.

NTPC, which is under the power ministry, has refused to sign fuel supply agreement (FSA) with Coal India citing concerns over quality of fuel.

Coal India's eastern subsidiary earlier this month had stopped supply to NTPC claiming that the power producer had not cleared dues since October 2012.

After government intervention, CIL had restored 50 per cent supplies pending resolution of the issue.

Last week, the heads of two state-run companies met Coal Secretary S K Srivastava to find an amicable solution to the crisis. Also Coal India had agreed to resume full supplies even as the power producer continued to raise the quality issue.

NTPC CMD Arup Roy Choudhury had said: "We will be paying as per the calorific value.If there is any such dispute...we will be going to resolve it very soon.

"We have both agreed that we will pay them as per the calorific value of coal which is done through our mutually acceptable sampling."

CIL chairman and managing director S Narsing Rao said: "Whatever is the actual coal that is being mined we will bill accordingly."

Earlier, the Power Minister had visited coal minister in December last year on fuel supply issues. After the meeting both the ministers had announced that most of the issues with regard to fuel supplies have been resolved and fuel supply agreements (FSAs) between power companies, including NTPC, and Coal India (CIL) would be signed within a month's time.

However, so far NTPC has not entered into FSA with CIL.