At a meeting chaired by power secretary P Uma Shankar on September 18, NTPC chairman Arup Roy Choudhury alleged that ever since CIL introduced the gross calorific value system for grading coal, there have been disparities in billing.

“There has been a substantial difference between the grade billed and the grade received from CIL, which is an unethical practice at the expense of the gencos and the consumers,” Roy Choudhury told Uma Shankar.

Chairman S Narsing Rao told The Indian Express that the allegation was “incorrect” and “devoid of facts”. “They should know that our fuel supply agreements have a provision for a joint sampling mechanism, wherein they also draw samples and in case of disagreement, referral samples can be sent to an independent agency for analysis,” Rao contended.

The bone of contention is that before discarding the useful heat value system for pricing coal, CIL charged about Rs 300 per tonne, but after shifting to GCV, it now bills Rs 600-1,000 a tonne. NTPC contends that while it is getting the same grade of coal, it is being billed for a higher grade, leading to a substantial revenue outgo.

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