The year 2015 will probably be remembered for one of the largest policy decisions, and its smooth execution, in the coal sector. Bloomberg TV India caught up with Coal Secretary Anil Swarup to discuss how the year has been for the sector.
When you took over as Coal Secretary, the entire cancellation of coal blocks had taken place. The sector was in a whirl at that point in time. A year later, we can see a complete calm in the sector. Did you ever think this is how you would be ending the year?
It was pretty tough indeed but God has been kind.
I have been blessed with a fantastic team which has worked very hard for me. Everything is going fine and everything is under control.
Let’s look back. The Supreme Court order had come and overnight 200 coal blocks were cancelled. Tell us a little bit about it — we can look back and smile about it. Tell us something about the thought process at that point of time. There was an Ordinance overnight for the allocation of coal mines cancelled by the Supreme Court order of October 2014. Auctioning had never happened before that in such a large scale. What was the thinking in bringing that Ordinance at that point in time?
The concern was that there were a number of mines that were already operational and the country in any case was woefully short of coal.
As you would recall, in 2014-15, despite record production, we imported more than 200 million tonnes.
I remember when I took over as the Coal Secretary, there were phone calls coming over from all Chief Secretaries because there was shortage of coal at the power plants.
The shortage was aggravated by the cancellation of these blocks.
So we had to do something by March 31 to get these blocks going because the Supreme Court had allowed mining to continue in a few blocks and we didn’t want the mining to stop. Consequently there was this urgency to do it. Now, why was this Ordinance urgently called? Normally we wouldn’t have done that.
But all the properties possessed by the previous owners of those mines had to be transferred to the new owners and hence this legislation. It was not so much for the allocation or the auction of the blocks, which was indeed one of the primary reasons why we had the legislation going. But it was primarily to facilitate the transfer of property — land and otherwise, and the other infrastructure therein — to the new owner, whoever got it through auctions or allotment that we had to bring in the Ordinance. So it was quite a task actually to convince everyone that the Ordinance was the need of the hour.
There was a big question mark on how this would actually play out…
Yes. Indeed, we were very conscious of the fact that the erstwhile owners, despite the cancellations of blocks, would be very reluctant to part with what they had had for so many years. But, as I said, there was a lot of support coming from all over the place — support from the top — and hence we could make it.
Tell us a little bit about what the situation is now in terms of how many of these coal blocks have started production or are going to start production this fiscal. When are they going to start adding revenue to the State governments?
There are already about eight blocks that have started production.
Around 6 million tonnes have already been produced by these blocks and we would believe that the remaining of the 34 blocks will start producing before the end of this financial year.
And, in the next financial year, they should add anywhere between 40 and 50 million tonnes to the kitty of coal production in the country.