New Delhi: State miner Coal India (CIL) will halve its e-auction so as to make more coal available for the power sector in the context of a fuel shortage, the government said on Wednesday.
"Coal India will reduce e-auction by half so that more coal is available for power plants," Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal told the Rajya Sabha while replying to a discussion on the power ministry.
The coal ministry has been trying to persuade CIL to cut down its lucrative e-auctions by more than 50 percent to 25 million tonnes in 2014-15 from 58 MT last year.
Coal-based power projects in the country are reeling under severe fuel scarcity, and Goyal Monday told parliament that 22 coal-based power plants monitored by Central Electricity Authority (CEA) had on July 29 stocks to last less than four days.
"Large amounts of coal are being sold through e-auction. This is not in public interest. Coal India`s primary duty is to supply to power plants," Goyal said.
CIL sold close to 58 MT of coal, or 12.5 percent of its total production of 462 million tonnes, through e-auctions in 2013-14. Estimates put the loss to the state miner from reducing e-auctions at around Rs 2,000 crore for the current fiscal.
