18 JUL, 2012, DEEPSHIKHA SIKARWAR, ET BUREAU
New Delhi: Planning commission and senior officials from a slew of ministries will draw up a road map to involve private sector in coal mining to boost domestic production and cut dependence on imports that have contributed significantly to widening of country's current account deficit in the last fiscal.
An inter-ministerial group will prepare a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for coal mining sector.
"Domestic production in coal needs to go up and PPPs could be a way forward. The group will prepare a framework with this object," a government official, privy to the development, told ET.
The group, chaired by R Gopalan, secretary, department of economic affairs in the finance ministry will have senior officials from coal, legal affairs, power and Planning Commission as members.
The prime minster's office has asked the group to urgently finalise the modalities of the PPP framework.
Coal imports rose by a staggering 80.3% to $17.6 billion from $9.8 billion, the third largest contributor to country's widening current account deficit that stood at 4.2% of GDP in the fiscal 2011-12.
The demand-supply gap is expected widen to around 200 million tonnes by 2016-17.
Imports have risen despite India sitting on large reserves, as Coal India, which has a monopoly over coal mining, has been unable to step up production to meet the rising demand from power plants.
The government hopes private involvement in coal production will help augment capacity.
"PPPs have been sucessful in many infra sectors and it can be emulated in coal mining," the official said.
As per the initial discussions, the PPP framework for coal sector would include enlisting a private sector player to operate a mine owned by Coal India.
"Private sector has lot of expertise in coal mining and involving them in the sector would give a big boost to production of coal in the country," said Vinayak Chatterjee, chairman of Feedback Infra, endorsing the proposal.
Others say the government needs to take the process forward.
"What you need is a comprehensive road map for the complete energy sector, across power, coal, gas, etc, since they have inter-linkages. You can't liberalize one while heavily regulating others" said Manish Agarwal, executive director, PwC.
The demand for coal during the terminal year of 12th Five Year Plan as per the draft report of the working group may increase from 696.00 million tonnes in 2011-12 to 980.50 million tonnes.
The domestic availability of coal, on the other hand, has been pegged at 795.00 million tonnes.
New Delhi: Planning commission and senior officials from a slew of ministries will draw up a road map to involve private sector in coal mining to boost domestic production and cut dependence on imports that have contributed significantly to widening of country's current account deficit in the last fiscal.
An inter-ministerial group will prepare a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for coal mining sector.
"Domestic production in coal needs to go up and PPPs could be a way forward. The group will prepare a framework with this object," a government official, privy to the development, told ET.
The group, chaired by R Gopalan, secretary, department of economic affairs in the finance ministry will have senior officials from coal, legal affairs, power and Planning Commission as members.
The prime minster's office has asked the group to urgently finalise the modalities of the PPP framework.
Coal imports rose by a staggering 80.3% to $17.6 billion from $9.8 billion, the third largest contributor to country's widening current account deficit that stood at 4.2% of GDP in the fiscal 2011-12.
The demand-supply gap is expected widen to around 200 million tonnes by 2016-17.
Imports have risen despite India sitting on large reserves, as Coal India, which has a monopoly over coal mining, has been unable to step up production to meet the rising demand from power plants.
The government hopes private involvement in coal production will help augment capacity.
"PPPs have been sucessful in many infra sectors and it can be emulated in coal mining," the official said.
As per the initial discussions, the PPP framework for coal sector would include enlisting a private sector player to operate a mine owned by Coal India.
"Private sector has lot of expertise in coal mining and involving them in the sector would give a big boost to production of coal in the country," said Vinayak Chatterjee, chairman of Feedback Infra, endorsing the proposal.
Others say the government needs to take the process forward.
"What you need is a comprehensive road map for the complete energy sector, across power, coal, gas, etc, since they have inter-linkages. You can't liberalize one while heavily regulating others" said Manish Agarwal, executive director, PwC.
The demand for coal during the terminal year of 12th Five Year Plan as per the draft report of the working group may increase from 696.00 million tonnes in 2011-12 to 980.50 million tonnes.
The domestic availability of coal, on the other hand, has been pegged at 795.00 million tonnes.
No comments:
Post a Comment