According to company sources, all major clearances have been ontained for the coal project which has been appraised by International Finance Corporation, Washington and its board has also approved financial assistance. Land acquisition activities are going on in full swing and the mining lease has been executed and registered for 1,219 acres out of 1,655 acres.

CESC has been able to meet four of the five efficiency norms set by the state government covering generation and distribution. The four areas are heat rate, oil rate, auxiliary consumption and coal transit loss.

The company will seek shareholder approval for hypothecation and mortgaging of properties against loans of Rs 205 crore from ICICI Ltd and Industrial Finance Corporation of India Ltd (IFCI) forits 500mw Budge Budge thermal power station located in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.

CESC sources said measures taken by the company to reduce fuel cost have already started yielding results. Oil consumption has been reduced from 20,482 kilolitres (kl) in 1997-98 to 8,599kl in 1998-99 and cost from Rs 18.69 crore to 7.98 crore.

The company has considerably reduced the consumption of coal from 678.95 tonnes for generation of one million kwh of electricity in 1997-98 to 649.65 tonnes in 1998-99 fiscal. The cost of coal has also gone down from Rs 10.22 lakh per million kwh to Rs 10.09 lakh.

In the 1997-98 fiscal, CESC used 27,03,568 tonnes of coal costing Rs 40,691 lakh to generate 3,982 million kwh of electricity, while in 1998-99 fiscal it used 30,63,101 tonnes of coal valued at Rs 47,593 lakh to generate 4,715 million kwh.

However, sources admitted that CESC is still grappling with pilferage and theft which is one of the major reasons for its high transmission and distribution loss. Shiftin mix from high tension to low tension is the other reason.

In 1992-93, high tension accounted for 51 per cent of sales which have, however, come down to only 42 per cent reflecting a recessionary trend in industry, particularly in steel works, rolling mills, jute and chemicals.

In order to secure shareholder approval for the ICICI and IFCI loans, the company will move an ordinary resolution at its 21st annual general meeting to be held on September 16 here at Science City. ICICI and IFCI have sanctioned term loans amounting to Rs 120 crore and Rs 40 crore respectively. In addition, another loan of Rs 45 crore has been sanctioned by ICICI for routine capital expenditure requirements of the company.