New Delhi: The Central Electricity Authority has constituted a panel of third party samplers of coal, including Mineral Exploration Corp, amid charges that stones are being despatched by CIL even after the introduction of the mechanism to assess the quality of the dry fuel.
The list of the third party samplers comprises 26 agencies and include Central Power Research Institute and Shriram Institute for Industrial Research, Coal India Ltd (CIL) said in a communication.
The list has been finalised by Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and concurred by Coal India .
Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal had also held a meeting with the Association of Power Producers in June on the issue.
The government had earlier set a deadline of August 31 to constitute a panel of third party sampling agencies.
"A panel of third party sampling agencies is to be prepared and the consumer shall appoint his sampling agency from the panel," a source had earlier said.
The issue of fuel quality being supplied to the power plants had cropped up in the presentation on the coal sector made to the Prime Minister Office earlier.
Goyal had said that to address the issue of fossil fuel quality third party sampling and analysis facilities at loading ends had been introduced and the process was being further streamlined.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget 2014-15 speech had said that stringent mechanism for quality control of coal was being put in place.
A system for third party sampling of coal is already in place since October last year at loading points.
The Power Ministry had earlier alleged that stones and boulders were still being despatched to the power plants.
"Supply of excessive stones and boulders especially from BCCL (Bharat Coking Coal Ltd), a Coal India subsidiary, is a matter of concern. It results in high detention of railway rakes and damage to coal handling system of power plants," a Power Ministry document had said.
The mechanism could not address the quality issue and so there is a "need to be done at unloading point", it said.
Recently, the Gujarat government had written to Goyal complaining of inferior coal being supplied to its power plants and had asked him to resolve the issue, saying it was impacting the utilities to the tune of Rs 400 crore a year.
The issue of coal quality last year had resulted in a standoff between the country's largest power producer NTPC and the world's largest coal producer CIL.
After the government intervened, it was decided that a third party mechanism would be introduced to check coal quality.
