By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI: The Union Ministry of Coal has removed the Bander coal mine in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra from the list of mines that are up for the auction under the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015. Bander is a part of the Tadoba–Andhari Tiger Reserve according to the notification declaring the area as an ecologically sensitive zone issued by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, media reports said.
The Chhattisgarh government has been asking the Union government to remove five coal blocks from the Hasdeo area in the state for similar reasons. But there has been no development on this front so far. Mohammad Akbar, in-charge of the department of forests and environment in the Chhattisgarh government had written a letter to the Centre on June 20. He had requested the Centre to remove Morga South, Morga II, Madanpur (North), Sayang and Fatehpur East from the list of coal blocks going for auction in the first tranche of auctions under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulations) Act, 1957.
Meanwhile, Coal India Limited said that supply of improved quality coal over committed grades and supply beyond annual contracted quantity have resulted in the PSU gaining over INR 3,125 crore. CIL said “Coal India Ltd’s concentrated efforts on supply of improved quality coal over committed grades and supply beyond annual contracted quantity have paid off as the company on whole gained a tidy amount over these twin attributes. An amount of around INR 1,365 crore provisioned under coal quality variance in the earlier years has been withdrawn, in the last fiscal, which is the net gain to CIL on whole.”
The PSU’s coal supplies, above agreed ACQ to its customers, having fuel supply agreement, also netted the company a substantial amount of over INR 1,760 crore under performance incentive during the previous two fiscals combined. For 2019-20, the performance incentive earned was INR 875 crore, whereas the same was INR 888 crore during 2018-19.
