Union minister of state for coal Sriprakash Jaiswal on Monday said the government is likely to institute a coal regulator by March 15. ??Everything on instituting a coal regulator is on track and we expect that a regulator will be in place by March 15 this year,?? he said.
Jaiswal, who was in the city to lay the foundation stone for Coal India Ltd?s (CIL) new office building at Rajarhat, however, did not give details on the structure of the regulator or the scope of its function.
In fact, setting up a coal regulator has been a long pending issue and there have been debates whether block allotments and pricing of coal should come under the regulator?s purview.
While the coal ministry has proposed allotting captive coal blocks via the auction route replacing the earlier screening method, most of the coal bearing states want the Centre to leave some blocks at the states? dispensation.
According to CIL officials, the ministry is likely to entrust the issue of block allocation with the regulator and come out of the Centre- state distribution dispute. On matters of pricing, CIL has been in favour of a regulator because it can help the company get import parity price for un-linked or unregulated consumers.
According to CIL chairman S Bhattacharyya, coal consumers in India are insulated from price volatility whereas coal prices across the globe are extremely volatile. CIL has been long pitching for import parity price for non-core sector consumers. A mechanism for fixing import parity price might be in place after the regulator is instituted, CIL officials said.
