The standing linkage committee on power, cement and sponge will meet on July 31 to review realistic assessment to supply coal under the new Fuel Supply Agreement (FSA).
Till now out of 472 applicants recommended for Letter of Assurance (LoA) only 188 have deposited the bank guarantees for the commitment guarantee with CIL and its subsidiaries.
In most cases the bank guarantee has been found to be defective on account of either not being payable in local bank, or not in the proper format, not having validity, having extra conditions etc. It means that only 54 applicants have been issued the LoA from the 1,193 linked consumers.
Sources said the SLC (LT) will now review the entire implementation of the FSA and deliberate on issues so that the agreement is signed by all parties and power utilities at the earliest by September 31.
A large number of applicants in the power sector, who have been granted linkages in the past, have so far not sought commencement of coal. In view of the new coal distribution policy (NCDP) all present and future commitment to supply coal is to be regulated through the FSA.
In the absence of FSA, the coal companies would not be able to plan their production to meet their commitments. The SLC (LT) is expected to agree on a further deadline of one or two months to enter into FSA or converting the old linkage into fresh LoA based on terms applicable to new consumers.