PM to review power, & coal projects; meet set for May 19
Press Trust of India

Posted: Monday, May 16, 2011
New Delhi: Amid inter-ministerial differences causing delay in execution of projects, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called a high-level meeting to resolve issues like coal shortages and environment clearances with the ministers of power, coal, environment, steel and finance on May 19.

“The meeting will be held on Thursday (May 19) to assess the progress made in the first four years of the current Plan and resolve the differences among the ministries,” a senior coal ministry official said.

This will include the power capacity addition targets achieved between 2007-08 and 2010-11 and projects stranded due to coal shortages and environment clearance, the official said.

The meeting, to be chaired by Singh, will be attended by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, steel minister Beni Prasad Verma, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

The official said that “an assessment will also be made for the actual requirements of Power, Coal and other ministries for the terminal year (2011-12) of the current Plan and next Five-Year Plan in the meeting."

According to an estimate made by the Planning Commission, the demand-supply gap for coal in the ongoing year, which is also the terminal year of current Five-Year Plan, has been assessed at 142 million tonnes (MT) with domestic availability of only 554 MT against the requirement of 696 MT.

However, the coal ministry feels that the 'no-go' policy of environment ministry, under which mining in 203 coal blocks is not allowed, has been the major reason for increase in coal shortages. According to the coal ministry, the 'no go' mining diktat has affected a potential production of 660 MT of coal per annum.