SHAKTI scheme under scanner as pvt players ‘misuse' its norms

NEW DELHI: The attempts to ‘misuse’ the provisions of SHAKTI policy as per their own ‘convenience’ by some private players in the coal sector have raised the doubts over the ‘transparent objective’ of the scheme as some private power generating companies have ‘interpreted’ the provisions of SHAKTI B (iv) as per their own convenience to tie up power purchase agreements.

As per industry sources, the coal allocation to the states of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh have come under the scanner as private players get the allocation of linkage coal through state governments from their preferred subsidiary of Coal India Limited to get rid of the competition under tariff-based competitive bidding that is scheduled to happen in near future and have windfall gains.

Notably, the Scheme for Harnessing and Allocating Koyala Transparently in India (SHAKTI) was notified in the Gazette in March 2019.

The allocation of coal to the states of Gujarat, UP, and MP through the subsidiaries from SECL, NCL, and WCL respectively out of eight subsidiaries which are BCCL, CCL, ECL, MCL, NEC, SECL, NCL, and WCL has brought the procedure under the scanner.