Energy consumption increasing in the country
By Sneha Kumari
Nagpur: Union Coal Secretary Anil Kumar Jain said that Coal India Limited ( CIL) has fixed a target of producing one billion tonnes coal in 2024-25 to cater the need of coal in thermal power stations in view of the rising energy consumption across the country.
Referring to the rising demands of energy, he told news persons on Tuesday that the energy consumption was increasing continuously and it is the responsibility of the CIL to meet the growing demands of the coal to keep the energy generation pace accelerated.
Mr Jain appeared confident about regular and adequate coal supply to the power plants across the country.
He admitted that coal production has been affected due to heavy rains as major amount are extracted from open mines. He, however maintained that the issue will be sorted out once the rains get over.
Referring to the auction of coal mines, he said that to maintain transparency, the process of e-auction has been adopted.
Speaking about the welfare of the employees working with CIL, he asserted that a major decision has been taken in the meeting of CMPF to strengthen the pension scheme of coal employees.
For this, he said that an agreement has been reached to increase CMPF fund statutorily under the CMPF Act.
Mr Jain said that the provision of Rs.10 per ton for CMPF has been proposed to be increased to Rs.20 per ton for continuously providing regular and time bound pension to the coal workers.
He said that in view of the private coal companies not contributing for the purpose, the coal ministry was contemplating to frame a law wherein such firms will have to contribute around Rs 20 per tonne coal towards pension fund.
CIL Chairman Pramod Agarwal, on the issue of workers pay revision said that a joint bipartite committee for coal industry (JBICC) was formed in July which till date has conducted five meetings.
Manoj Kumar ,CMD (WCL,Nagpur) elaborated the coal generation aspect as well as environment oriented schemes and welfare programmes for the employees under WCL jurisdiction.
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