Prime Minister's Office to meet Coal, Power Ministry officials on Oct 10

The Prime Minister's Office has called a meeting of officials of coal and power ministries on October 10 to discuss various issues, including single window clearance for coal projects.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of acute fuel shortages hurting electricity generation and upcoming power projects.

"PMO is holding a meeting on October 10 to discuss various issues, including price pooling mechanism, coal linkages for power projects and single window clearances for coal projects, among others," a Coal Ministry official told PTI.

The meeting will be chaired by Pulok Chatterji, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. Coal Secretary S K Srivastava and Power Secretary P Uma Shankar, among others, will attend the meeting.

According to the official, the meeting was scheduled for today.

A host of issues such as lower production, environmental hurdles and those related to fuel supply agreements are hurting coal supplies to power projects.

Coal India last month had approved the modified fuel supply agreement (FSA) without price-pooling with 65 per cent domestic coal and 15 per cent imported coal on cost plus basis.

To meet the shortfall in domestic coal production, the government is looking at implementing price pooling mechanism but a consensus is yet to emerge among the stakeholders.

The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has worked out a formula for price pooling.