Comments
A parliamentary panel has asked Coal India Ltd to ensure that only actual users participate in the electronic auctions for buying the fuel.
“…the thrust of the Committee’s original recommendation was on exercising due diligence to prevent misuse/manipulation of existing e-auction arrangements by black marketers, the Committee finds that action taken replies are silent on the matter. Hence, the Committee would desire a detailed reply on the mechanism available in the fresh e-auction schemes to ensure that only actual users participate in the same…,” the Committee on Public Enterprises said in its report tabled in Lok Sabha on Thursday.
The Committee also raised concern that work related to geographical reports and subsequent project reports for exploration and mining in 110 out of the 119 coal blocks assigned to Coal India has been progressing slowly and more worryingly, environmental and forest clearances remains a big hurdle for the large number of blocks.
“As already stated in their previous recommendations, the Committee desires that the Ministry of Environment and Forests must be urged to process the pending clearances for drilling in a strict time bound manner,” the report stated. “Overall, the Committee desires to be apprised of further progress made in this regard, particularly after simplification of procedures for according forest clearance to exploration proposals and urge the Ministry of Coal to continue vigorous efforts so as to enable Coal India to gain the requisite forest clearances,” it added.
Opting out of venture Meanwhile, the government informed the committee that Coal India no longer wishes to continue in the public sector joint venture International Coal Ventures Ltd as the latter’s aim is to find an acquire metallurgical coal assets abroad.
The Centre in its reply to the Committee stated that Coal India’s aim is to meet the country’s increasing thermal coal demand.
It added that Coal India’s arm Coal Videsh is already engaged in identifying thermal coal assets abroad.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.