An urgent online meeting was requested by NITI Aayog group working on coal gasification. A high-powered committee under the leadership of shri Rajeev Gauba has been formed for major reforms in coal sector and developing an ecosystem for coal gasification. A working group led by shri Rajnath Ram is tasked with preparing a base paper. The high-level committee would present the recommendations to the group of ministers and Prime Minister.
The committee needed a feedback and views of the industry on the subject and requested CGAI to organize the meeting. Following companies participated at a very short notice.
- CGAI
- Thermax
- Jindal steel
- Larsen & Toubro
BHEL had agreed but could not join the meeting.
It was felt that the progress on coal gasification projects is very slow. Although 7 projects on coal gasification with financial support of VGF have been awarded by the ministry of coal, but the target of gasifying 100 million tons of coal by 20230 is difficult to be achieved as only about 10 million tons only has been allocated to the awarded projects. Following points were suggested by the CGAI and its members to accelerate the pace of progress in coal gasification and discussed in the meeting.
- All block holders be given inbuilt automatic permission to undertake necessary geoscientific studies required for assessing the potential of gasification. Such automatic permission should be given for the surface coal gasification as also for underground coal gasification (UCG) on the award of block. Block holders after completion of studies and pilot studies will require to take permission for commercial activities.
- The Ecosystem is proposed to follow a cluster system. It was suggested that it should be built on the lines of SEZ / PCPIR with multiple secondary, third stage manufacturing with and export options. Eastern sector could be better to start first cluster-based ecosystem.
- Syngas producers with captive use of syngas
- Syngas producers and suppliers
- Chemicals & fertilizers manufacturers
- Power generation etc.
- Coal Gasification sector should be accorded infrastructure status
- Technology for gasification is available and can be customized for the coal mine. The gasification plants should be placed close to the mine with land allocation to minimize transportation need.
- Guaranteed offtake of products through government system would greatly facilitate the project investments.
- Higher financial support in the form of VGF will attract more investments as banks also will be favorably placed to grant loans.
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