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The Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram is likely to meet on December 18 to discuss the Draft Coal Regulator Bill. This would be the third deliberation on the issue by the law makers.
Pricing power for the regulator was one of the contentious issues to emerge when the Draft Coal Regulator Bill was taken up by the Cabinet in May. The Cabinet had referred the matter to the GoM.
The GoM last met on July 25 where several Ministers objected to the powers proposed to be given to the coal regulator.
According to the first draft note circulated by the nodal Coal Ministry, the price of raw and washed coal as well as any other by-product generated during the process of coal washing has to be determined by the regulator.
However, the proposal for pricing power to the Coal Regulator was not supported by a few members of the GoM. At the same time, some of the powers proposed for the Regulator are already practiced by Coal Controller.
Other than determining price, the Coal Ministry had also said the regulator would be responsible for granting or cancelling mining authorisation, monitoring the utilisation of funds for the implementation of coal conservation and development, and specifying procedures for automatic coal sampling and weighing. This option was also not supported by GoM.
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