Coal India to Reduce Selling Fuel via E-Auctions

New Delhi: Amid acute shortage of coal for the power sector, Coal India Limited has accepted the government's request for drastically reducing its e-auctions to almost half.

"Accepting government's request, Coal India has decided to drastically reduce the coal sold through e-auctions to various players in the country," Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said.

A total of 58 million tonnes (MT) of coal was sold by Coal India through e-auctions in 2013-14 and the government had asked it to cut its sale to 25 MT this financial year to make more coal available for the fuel-starved power sector.

According to sources, CIL, the single largest coal producer in the world, has already sold 14 million tonnes of coal during the first three months of the current fiscal year and, thus, will reduce its sale through e-auctions gradually.

There were reports of differences between the Coal Ministry and CIL over the former's "request" of a cut in e-auction sales by the state-owned miner and the matter had also reached the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) which had asked for assessing its losses due to the e-auctions cut.

The sources said that CIL after agreeing to Coal Ministry's request will carry out e-auction sale of 30 million tonnes of coal this financial year.

Mr Goyal had earlier said that large amounts of coal being sold through e-auctions was not in public interest as CIL's primary responsibility is to provide coal for power production.

CIL sells about seven per cent of its output through e-auctions and smaller users including power companies and non-power users buy coal through this route.

CIL, which accounts for 80 per cent of domestic coal production, produced 462 million tonnes of coal during 2013-14 as against 452.5 million tonnes in the previous fiscal year.