New Delhi Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan’s claim of awarding clearances to projects which will double coal production in the country may not hold true completely as many projects are awaiting environment and forest clearances from her ministry.

Natajaran’s recent letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh opposing the setting up of a National Investment Board said that environmental clearances had been granted to 181 coal mines with a total capacity of 83 million tonnes per annum during the 11th Plan period up to August 2011 — doubling India’s current capacity. In addition, 113 coal mines had been granted permission to divert 26,000 hectares of forest land for industrial use.

NHPC, pre-dominantly focussed on hydro power generation, has decided to explore the possibility of a tie-up with public sector power utilities such as Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) and NTPC to make a foray into thermal power generation, including bidding jointly for a future ultra mega power project (UMPP).

Sources in the Power Ministry said that the NHPC board had recently granted approval for entering other modes of generation, including thermal, with a view to diversifying its business.

New Delhi The government is likely to postpone the implementation of coal price pooling because of the strong opposition from consuming states who feel it would raise the cost of power generators and increase tariff for consumers.

Under price pooling mechanism, CIL would have subsidised the price of imported coal (which is 50% costlier now) by raising domestic coal prices and supplying full quantity of coal at uniform price to consumers. The pooling mechanism, being finalised at the instance of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), is meant to address coal shortage being faced by consumers and would be especially helpful to new power plants to cut the cost of fuel imports.

The 500 MW Unit-4 of NTPC Simhadri Super Thermal Project at Parawada near here has started commercial operations – six months after it went on stream -- even as the company is set to breathe easy with improvement in coal supply position.

The company, which has 500x4 MW units as part of Stage-I and II of the Rs.10,000-crore project, is set to overcome coal shortage with the State government agreeing to supply 7,000 tonnes per day in addition to the early availability of 3,500 tonnes from Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL).

New Delhi The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will further widen the scope of its investigations into the coal block allocation scam by looking into the role of officials of Central and state sector PSUs, including NTPC, SAIL and a host of state mineral development corporations.

These utilities had got allocation of captive coal blocks from the Centre between 1993 and 2009 under the special dispensation route for government companies.

New Delhi The ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) has proposed tapping into the Clean Energy Fund proceeds to subsidise the capacity addition envisaged in the second phase of the national s

The union coal secretary S K Srivastava ruled out any impact of the row over coal block allocation on the performances of the public sector Coal India Limited (CIL) saying that the company is surging ahead to achieve its ambitious target of 470 million tonne production in the current financial year.

“CIL intends to grow at the rate of 7.5 per cent each year and there is absolutely no impact of coal block allocation row on the CIL,” he told reporters at Talcher coalfield on Friday.

Power generation in the 3,000 MW NTPC-Kaniha has been drastically curtailed this month due to coal shortage.

Power generation at National Thermal Power Corporation’s (NTPC) 3,000 MW Kaniha plant, the country’s second biggest power plant, has drastically gone down in September due to coal crunch.

According to NTPC sources, a 500 MW unit has been shut down since the beginning of this month for want of coal. Similarly, another 500 MW unit which was closed three days back for the same reason is yet to be restored.

The state energy department has requested public sector power company NTPC to step up generation at its 2,000-Mw Simhadri power project in Visakhapatnam to ensure Andhra Pradesh's full share.

The state is currently receiving only 800 Mw from the Simhadri plant compared with its full share of 1,400 Mw as a part of the installed capacity is kept idle due to shortage in coal supplies, particularly from Mahanadi Coalfields (MCL), according to a press release.