NTPC agrees to sign fuel supply pact with Coal India

New Delhi: State-run NTPC today said it would abide by the Prime Minister's Office directive of signing the fuel supply agreement with Coal India at a minimum assured supply of 65 percent.

"We want coal, we would do what the PMO says," CMD NTPC Arup Roy Choudhury said without divulging whether the trigger level would be 65 percent.[caption id="attachment_359462" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="Coal power. Reuters"][/caption]

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO), in a meeting held last week, is believed to have accepted the demand of Coal India to lower the minimum supply level or trigger level to 65 percent from 80 percent, proposed by the PMO earlier.

It asked the coal major to increase the minimum supply level to 72 percent in four years and reach the 80 percent mark in five years.

PMO also asked Coal India to go for coal imports through the state-owned agencies including STC and MMTC.

Earlier a Presidential directive was issued in April, after the PMO's intervention, asking Coal India Ltd to commit a minimum of 80 percent of fuel supply to power projects.

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Besides, there would be no moratorium on payment of penalty.

Coal India, which accounts for over 80 percent of the domestic coal production, will take the PMO directions before its board meeting on 8 July.

CIL, which missed the revised production target last fiscal and produced 435 million tonnes of coal, has set a production target of 464 MT for 2012-13.

PTI