Coal mining activities by definition are commercial, but in India this has come to define the right of a coal miner to sell the products in open market.

The Competition Commission has imposed a fine of Rs 591 crore on Coal India for allegedly having discriminatory conditions in fuel supply pacts. Apart from directing the company to cease and desist from anti-competitive practices, the watchdog has ordered modification in the agreements.

The coal sector remains the most inefficient and least open to private investment, despite coal being the country´s primary source of fuel, says Krrishan Singhania, Managing Partner, Singhania Associates.

The order refers to the plants which are part of the tranche of projects totalling capacity of 78,000 Mw for which a presidential directive was issued in 2013.The central government will bail out close to 21,400 Mw of power plants by assuring coal linkage through new fuel supply agreements (FSAs).

At present, India is not yet ready with the concept of third party involvement for building up rail infrastructure for coal linkages. Now with the positivity which the present government has got along, investors are optimistic about fast-track solutions for coal linkage issues.

Amid top domain experts, decision makers and policy enablers, this mega event brought to the fore the pressing challenges facing the sector and offered many practical remedies, report MANAS R BASTIA and Shriyal Sethumadhavan.

Following is the list of the projects which was cleared by Project Monitoring Group

Can this be the twist in UPA II's tail and the welcome unknotting of India's wound-up growth story? Just over a month after the Prime Minister's Office constituted a monitoring committee in early June this year to troubleshoot stalled infrastructure projects,

The Union government on August 26 cleared Rs 1 lakh crore infrastructure projects which include projects under shipping and ports sector. The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh headed Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) has also asked the departments concerned to remove the bottlenecks for the projects within a month.