Coal India To Pilot New Billing System With NTPC
The new billing system will compute prices on every unit of GCV of coal, doing away with grade policy at present.
Coal India Ltd. will try out a new customer-friendly billing system for consumers with state-owned power major NTPC Ltd. on a pilot basis, in line with a global quality practice framework, a top official said.
The new billing mechanism will compute prices on every unit of Gross Calorific Value of coal, doing away with the grade policy at present.
The GCV unit-based pricing of coal was first announced by Gopal Singh in January this year when he was holding a temporary charge as chairman of Coal India.
Singh had expected the rollout of the new pricing method from April this year.
“It has not started yet. It entails a lot of things, and that's why we are not in a hurry.Consumers should also agree. We are planning to carry out a pilot soon with NTPC,” SN Prasad, Coal India’s director for marketing, told news agency PTI.
The trial will be conducted with 1-2 plants of NTPC and 1-2 mines of Coal India in the first round.
“After 2-3 months, we will analyse the results before taking a call on the rollout in full scale,” he said.
If the initial results are positive then the new pricing will cover all the NTPC plants in the second round before extending the new billing system to all consumers, Prasad said.
He said the pilot project would help the miner understand teething problems.
Coal India had also met the stakeholders to deliberate on the proposed pricing mechanism and claimed that most of them had supported it.
Asked why the rollout of the new pricing mechanism has been delayed, a senior official of Coal India said it is a major reform involving all the mines and requires a cautious approach.
“You pay exactly what quality you get. For each GCV, 48 paise will change either upward or downward from the median of each grade that the company has proposed,” Gopal Singh had explained earlier.
Coal India has 17 grades from 2000 to 7000 GCV, with a difference of 300 GCV between two grades.
Coal India expects the new mechanism to bring down corruption and leave a positive impact on coal production.
Earlier, mining workers were not encouraged to cross a grade which was difficult but all miners will now be encouraged to produce more, Singh had said earlier.