CIL floats maiden tender to import 2.416 MT coal

New Delhi: State-owned CIL on Thursday said that it has floated its maiden tender to import 2.416 million tonnes of coal to ensure adequate supply of the fuel to power plants in the country.

The development assumes significance in the wake of the government making all efforts to build up stock of coal to avoid the reoccurrence of power outages which happened in April on account of shortage of the fossil fuel. "In a first ever, Coal India Limited (CIL) on Wednesday floated an international competitive bidding e-tender, seeking bids for import of 2.416 million tonnes (MTs) of coal," the company said in a statement.

The coal being sourced on behalf of the state generating companies (gencos) and independent power plants (IPPs) is based on the indents received from them. It is for July-September period of the current fiscal year, the statement said.

Though coal import is an uncharted terrain for CIL, within a week of receiving indents from the seven state gencos and 19 IPPs, for a total of 2.41.6 MTs of coal, the company on a war footing has finalised and floated the tender.

The current short-term tender for import of dry fuel for the second quarter of the ongoing financial year is source agnostic. This means the coal can be sourced from any country.

The Centre had nominated CIL as a centralised agency to increase coal supplies to state gencos and IPPs through import of dry-fuel at a time when the demand for coal is high.