Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday promised a time-bound solution to the power sector’s coal-supply woes.
At a meeting with top industrialists including Cyrus Mistry, deputy chairman of the Tata Group, Anil Ambani, chairman, Reliance Power, and Gautam Adani, Singh directed Pulok Chatterji, principal secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office, to immediately start organising regular meetings of the secretaries of various ministries to sort out the sector’s issues.
The PM then asked Chatterji to update him on the progress made to resolve matters.
Meanwhile, the ministry of coal has agreed to increase the minimum supply of coal under the fuel supply agreement (FSA) up to 65-70% as against the demand of 90% by the ministry of power.
“90% fuel guarantee would be difficult,” said Sri Prakash Jaiswal, Union minister of coal.
There was a stand-off between the ministries of coal and power after the former changed the guidelines for FSAs that promised only 50% supply for new power plants. No new FSA has been signed for almost three years now.
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