The Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram will likely hold a meeting tomorrow, December 18th, to discuss the Draft Coal Regulator Bill.

One of the most contentious issues to decide will be pricing power for the coal regulator. It had also emerged when the Bill was taken up by the Union Cabinet in May this year. The Cabinet had then referred the matter to the Group of Ministers.

Thus, this is going to be the third time when the lawmakers will consider the issue of pricing power for the coal regulator. Earlier, the GoM had met on 25th of July. In that meeting many Ministers had objected to the powers proposed to be provided to the coal regulator.

As per the draft note circulated by the Coal Ministry, the regulator should be given the power to determine the price of raw and washed coal and also any other by product produced during the process of coal washing.

Apart from determining price for coal, the proposed powers aim to enable the regulator to grant or cancel mining authorization, monitor the utilization of funds for the implementation of coal conservation & development, as well as specifying procedures for automatic coal sampling & weighing. Many members of the GoM had also opposed this option in the last meeting.