In a bid to facilitate steady supply of coal in a fair and transparent manner to MSME sector, Coal India Limited (CIL) held a meeting with the State Governments recently at its headquarters in Kolkata. This meeting was first of its kind.
In a consumer friendly initiative, CIL had invited all the State Governments to discuss the details of coal supplies to MSMEs. The idea behind was to assess the problems of medium and small consumers to find remedial measures.The objective of the meeting was to put at ease the concern of the small consumers regarding their coal requirements and to reassure them of CIL’s commitment in easing coal supplies through their respective state government nominated agency. The meeting was attended by Director (Marketing), CIL, CVO, CIL and an official from Ministry of Coal.
CIL earmarks about 8 Million Tonnes (MTs) of coal annually, sold at notified prices, to MSME sector which constitutes brick kilns, food processing industry, lime factories, smokeless fuel plants, coke oven units and other small industries that rely on coal for their product generation.
In line with the New Coal Distribution Policy of Government of India, consumers in small and medium sector having annual requirement of less than 4200 Tonnes of coal and otherwise not having any access to purchase coal or conclude FSA for coal supply with the companies, gets coal through State nominated agencies. Considering the large number of MSME consumers, Coal India’s subsidiary companies enter into bi-lateral FSAs with State Government nominated agencies who in turn distribute the coal to MSME consumers as per their requirements.
