Protests by coal consumers, led by the power industry, against the government move to switch to a new pricing methodology have forced state owned miner Coal India Ltd to roll back the price hike under the Gross Calorific Value based system effected on January 1.

Terming the CIL decision to raise rates an “error”, Indian coal minister Mr Sriprakash Jaiswal made it clear the rollback had more to do with the fear of passing on the increase to power tariffs than bringing a more efficient grading system.

Announcing the rollback, he said “Our country is not in a position to increase power prices.”

The new grading system that led to an average 12.5% increase in prices would have given additional revenue of INR 6,250 crore to the miner annually.

The power industry had raised the price hike issue in meetings with the Prime Minister and the coal minister on January 18.

(Sourced from business-standard.com)