Coal India Ltd and its subsidiaries are not facing any cash crunch even as their outstanding dues were provisionally pegged at Rs 15,293.17 crore as on February 28, the Ministry of Coal said on March 16.
While the gross debt of Coal India and its subsidiaries continues to remain high, it has come down significantly from Rs 22,165.85 crore as of March 31, 2021.
In February, Coal India Chairman Pramod Agrawal had said that there was an urgent need to increase prices, and without it, certain subsidiaries will find it difficult to survive.
Coal India has faced the challenging task of scaling up production and dispatch amid disruptions due to the pandemic and heavy rains in the fiscal as demand picked up. The company has huge receivables on one hand and on the other hand is unable to increase prices despite rising costs.
“At present, there is no cash crunch in Coal India Limited and its subsidiaries. However, gross debtors of Coal India Limited (ClL) and its subsidiaries stood at Rs. 22165.85 crore and Rs. 15293.17 crore (Provisional) as on 31.03.2021 and 28.02.2022,” the ministry said in the statement.
In another written reply to Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi said that the last revision in price of coal was done by Coal India with effect from December 1, 2020 when prices were increased by Rs 10 per tonne across all the 17 grades of coal for both regulated and non-regulated sector. In percentage terms, it translates into an increase of 0.3% to 2.25 % for regulated sectors and 0.3% to 1.88% for non-regulated sectors.
The price of domestic coal is deregulated in nature and not notified by the government of India. Coal India determines the prices of domestic coal based on various factors such as costing, future projects viability, changes in inflationary cost indices, competitiveness with imported coal, among other factors.
The minister also said there were no significant short term borrowings as on December 31, 2021. But an amount of Rs 46.50 crore of short term bank borrowing is outstanding in Bharat Coking Coal Limited and Rs 0.14 crore of bank overdraft is outstanding in Eastern Coalfields Limited as on end-December.
In a separate written reply to the Lok Sabha, the minister said that India’s coal demand is seen at 1.3-1.5 billion tonnes by 2030.
The minister also said there was no shortage of coal in the country. Due to increased demand of power, less power generation by imported coal-based power plants and some interruption in supply of coal due to heavy rains, the coal stock at the power plants depleted to 7.2 million tonnes (MT) as on October 8, 2021.
Subsequently, with increased coal supplies, the coal stock has started increasing and has now reached 26.5 MT as on 09.03.2022 with respect to the plants based on domestic coal. In addition, coal stock at Coal India and Singareni Collieries Company pithead as on 13.03.2022 is 47.95 MT and 4.49MT, respectively.
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