Wide gap between demand and supply of coal: Govt

Government on Wednesday admitted that there was no surplus coal with subsidiaries of Coal India Ltd (CIL) and there was a wide gap between availability and commitments made by the company to various consumers.

"There is no surplus coal available with the subsidiary companies of Coal India Ltd. In fact, there is a wide gap between the availability of coal and the commitments made by CIL through fuel supply agreements (FSAs) and letters of assurance (LOAs) for supply of coal," Coal Minister Sriparkash Jaiswal informed the Lok Sabha during Question Hour.

Amid din created by pro-Telangana members, Jaiswal in reply to a supplementary said providing coal linkage was the duty of the government.

He said CIL has commitments to supply 318.74 million tonne (MT) of coal to power plants through FSAs and out of this, 114.70 MT is on account of NTPC and 10.92 MT on account of private sector power plants.

The minister said CIL has issued 172 LOAs to power units for a total quantity of 423.48 MT. Out of this, 72.151 MT coal per annum is the commitment of NTPC against 20 LOAs and 240.684 MT coal per annum to private sector plants against 111 LOAs.