Coal India suffers mine downgrade

Nearly 41 per cent of the samples collected from 386 mines of Coal India Ltd have been downgraded after an analysis of 871 samples done by the Coal Controllers Office.

The samples were from `size fractions and sidings’ of 386 (of the 406) mines of the public sector behemoth. CIL said that while 51.5 % of the samples retained their grades, 40.7 % size fractions/sidings were downgraded and 7.7 % were upgraded in reference to the grade declaration during 2016-17.

“ In most cases downgrading has been of one or two grades”, CIL has said in a regulatory filing. It also said that the impact of this on its revenue can only be assessed after coal sampling and analysis over a reasonable period of time.

It may be mentioned here that this exercise, marks a significant change from the earlier practice of annual grade declaration by coal companies on basis of collection of own samples and analysis as government accredited laboratories. The Coal Controllers approval came after this internal assessment.

However for the current fiscal , as per the directives of the Centre, the CCO announced a new methodology, under which sampling and analysis of different seams/loading points was to be carried out through a few designated academic institutions and CCO would finalise the grades based on their results.