Coal India chairman Pramod Agrawal asked the member (traffic) of Railway Board to advise zonal railways not to resort to any unilateral recovery of the claims from the amounts deposited by coal companies for deposit works.
The direction was given on August 14, 2020 after issue regarding railway’s claim on land licence fee arose and zonal railways lodged a claim of Rs 2948.02 crore on the subsidiary coal companies of CIL, which included a massive claim of Rs 2622.37 crore on WCL alone for the period dating back from the year 1908, the pre independence era.
Apart from this EC Railways unilaterally adjusted an amount of Rs 139 crores from Tori-Shivpur deposit head of CCL and issued a letter to NCL threatening that an amount of Rs 27.76 crore towards the claim on licence fee shall be appropriated from the amounts deposited by NCL for other developmental works.
The chairman in his letter written that the issue of license fee was discussed in the meeting held between Railways and CIL on November 23, 2018, during which CIL had clarified that since coal traffic movement is a commercial activity leading to revenue generation for both CIL and railways, and as the railway infrastructure for connecting the siding for movement of wagons is an integral part for this activity, there should not be any additional claim in the form of lease rent or licence fee for the railway land used for creating such railway infrastructure.
The chairman reminded that it was proposed, if necessary, for technical purposes, a token amount of Re 1 per square meter may be charged for future use.
The chairman in his letter has warned against unilateral and unpleasant steps of appropriating the claims towards land licence fee from the amount deposited by the coal companies towards developmental work which would translate into additional traffic for railways, saying the steps are not in tandem with long standing partnership existing between the two large commercial organizations.
The chairman before making his stand clear on the issue of licence fee reminded railways of its harmonious relationship with CIL saying both are partners in meeting the energy needs of the country. He said that time tested, strong and harmonious relationships between these two organisations had helped the country to tide over many crisis situations in the energy front.
Even during the crisis being faced by the country due to Covid 19 pandemic, CIL and railways have taken various steps to mitigate the sufferings of customers, he wrote. The recent dispensation in the form of rebate in freight by 20 percent granted by railways to the long distance customers is one step welcomed by one and all, he mentioned.
