Aluminium industry asks CIL to normalise 'precarious' situation arisen due to coal supply stoppage

We earnestly request your kind intervention to normalise the precarious situation arisen due to stoppage of coal supplies and rakes through...immediate resumption of coal supply against secured linkages for sustainable industry operations, rakes allocation on priority for aluminium industry for optimum coal materialisation, it said.Any decision for stoppingcurtailing secured coal supplies should not be taken on ad hoc basis.

The Aluminium Association of India (AAI) on Monday sought intervention of state-owned CIL to normalise the precarious situation arisen due to stoppage of coal supplies and rakes for captive power plants, resulting in situation of crunch of dry-fuel for the aluminium sector.

This ''ad hoc decision'' without any advance notice has brought down the industry to a standstill and the industry has been left out with no time to devise any mitigation plan to continue sustainable operations, the AAI said in a letter to Coal India (CIL) Chairman and Managing Director.

''This has reference to the crisis situation developed for the entire aluminium sector due to the recent ad hoc decision for stopping/drastically curtailing the coal supplies and rakes for captive power plants (CPPs) resulting in coal crunch situation for aluminium sector,'' the letter said.

Also resorting to imports at such a short notice is not be feasible and also not in the spirit of government's vision of self-reliant India, it said.

The aluminium industry CPPs have signed fuel supply pact with CIL and its subsidiaries for assured long-term coal supply. Any abrupt stoppage of this secured coal supply brings the industry to a grinding and also have severe impact on the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in downstream sector, resulting in increased prices of finished products with burden on end consumers.

Being a continuous process based power intensive industry, aluminium sector needs coal security and uninterrupted supplies to continue sustainable operations and also to reduce the load on Power Grid. ''We earnestly request your kind intervention to normalise the precarious situation arisen due to stoppage of coal supplies and rakes through...immediate resumption of coal supply against secured linkages for sustainable industry operations, rakes allocation on priority for aluminium industry for optimum coal materialisation,'' it said.

Any decision for stopping/curtailing secured coal supplies should not be taken on ad hoc basis. The CPP based industry should be give prior notice well in advance -- one to three month -- to devise mitigation plan with regard to coal/power imports, it added.

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