MoC and MoP agree to cabinet secretary-led panel’s proposals 

The Ministry of Coal (MoC) and the MoP have agreed to the proposals submitted by the cabinet secretary P.K. Sinha-led panel. Accordingly, the MoC is likely to float a cabinet note soon to amend SHAKTI – the Scheme for Harnessing and Allocating Koyla Transparently in India – to allow power generated using domestic coal to be traded in the short-term market including exchanges. Currently, domestic coal allocation is provided to plants with long-term PPAs only. Further, the MoC will earmark 50 per cent of e-auction coal for the power sector. In addition, the proposal for sharing fuel supply contracts of state-owned generation companies with private generation companies has also been approved by the MoC. An amendment to the coal allocation policy to enable allocation of coal supplies to an agency for aggregation and auction along with PPAs without requisition by states has also been approved.