Coal India may hike coal prices by up to Rs 175 a tonne

NEW DELHI: State-owned Coal India may hike coal prices by up to Rs 175 a tonne to close the gap between domestic and international rates.

CIL has not hiked prices since 2007 and this has resulted in a huge difference in prices.

"CIL is considering to raise the coal prices by about 10 per cent across-the-board soon," sources said.

Domestic coal prices range between Rs 770 and Rs 1,700 a tonne. If hiked by 10 per cent, the prices would go up by Rs 175 a tonne.

A top Coal India official, however, said the hike would be "modest" and said, "our prices are 50 per cent discounted as compared to the global prices. Now there has been a major wage revision resulting in over Rs 4,000 crore additional financial burden on us which cannot be met through production and productivity alone."

The official said that CIL had witnessed a sharp drop in retained earnings because of the wage-built annual impact and the company's retained profit could be only Rs 300 crore on a turnover of about Rs 45,000 crore last year.