The government has decided not to wait for the passage of the Coal Regulatory Bill in Parliament during the Monsoon session and instead go ahead with notifying setting up of the Coal Regulatory Authority (CRA) through an executive order, reports indicate.
Some reports suggest that the government may resort to the executive order route to adopt the coal regulatory bill, thereby superseding the time-consuming Parliamentary approval.
Earlier, the government adopted this route to create Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority and also the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
India witnessed 29 per cent rise in coal imports at 11.4 million tonne (mn t) during March 2013, of which thermal coal shipments accounted for nearly 80 per cent.
Owing to rising demand, imported coal may rise further to 115-120 mn t during 2013-14. During 2012-13, India imported 135 million tonne (mn t) of coal compared to 105 mn t in 2011-12. Major portion of the coal import is constituted by thermal coal, which stood at 97.23 mn t in 2012-13.
Despite sitting on abundant reserves to the tune of around 286 billion tonne, coal production in the country has remained stagnant and the country has to depend on costly import.
Shortage of coal in power plants led to chronic power shortages that have had a crippling effect on the economic growth. More than half of the country’s 223.3 gigawatt installed capacity is produced from coal.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.