Latest News | Merger of Multiple E-auction Windows into One Will Help Expand Customer Base, Boost Demand: CIL
Get latest articles and stories on Latest News at LatestLY. With surging pithead stock and a surplus scenario in the sector, Coal India is in favour of tweaking its e-auction policy to broaden its customer base and maintain a steady bottomline, an official said on Sunday.
Kolkata, Dec 13 (PTI) With surging pithead stock and a surplus scenario in the sector, Coal India is in favour of tweaking its e-auction policy to broaden its customer base and maintain a steady bottomline, an official said on Sunday.
The idea of "putting all e-auction coal in single bucket" will help realise a higher off-take, he said.
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"When pithead coal stock is nearly 70 million tonne and we have a surplus situation, the idea of putting all e- auction coal in single bucket will help expand the base of customers. This will result in a higher offtake," a Coal India official told PTI.
The government had indicated that the reform measures could be taken in the marketing of the fuel.
The allocation of coal for e-auctions is "more than demand at present" even though there are signs of revival in the economic activities after the lockdown.
The coal behemoth conducts five types of e-auction of the dry fuel for its customers.
Adopting a policy of conducting one auction for all types of customers is aimed at broadening the customer base, the official said.
The PSU major had recently allowed its subsidiaries to fix the base price for e-auction depending on demand to improve their margins.
However, Coal India registered a 77 per cent growth in e-auction sales under the five windows, with a booking of 68.3 million tonne in the April-November period in the current fiscal as compared to 38.6 million tonne booked during the year-ago period.
In absolute term, there was a 30 million tonne increase in the e-auction coal booking.
With an increased appetite for the fuel from non-power consumers, the exclusive auction for this sector witnessed a booking of 17.4 million tonne which was 25.5 per cent of the total allocated quantity during the period, he added.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)