However, the panel headed by Power Ministry's Additional Secretary (Thermal, Transmission, O&M) Shalini Prasad strongly recommended against allowing the developers to divert coal from the captive mine allocated to their UMPPs.
"The committee has firmed up its view and will submit its report to the Coal Ministry in a couple of days. There is a broad consensus that the UMPPs can assign or mortgage their coal mines to their project lenders," a source said.
The committee was set up following differences between coal and power ministries on whether an UMPP can be allowed to assign or mortgage its coal mine or not.
The panel had two rounds of discussions before firming up its view.
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The committee, which also has two joint secretaries (coal and thermal) from the Power Ministry and one from the Ministry of Law, took up the issue after Reliance Power's application seeking nod from the Madhya Pradesh government to use its coal mine allocated to Sasan UMPP as a collateral was rejected by the Coal Ministry.
In case UMPPs are allowed to use their coal mines as collateral, it will help them raise money smoothly to run their plants.
The main purpose of setting up of UMPPs is to make available cheap affordable power for all. Thus, these projects are allocated through a single-window mechanism with all mandatory permissions and tying up required resources like land, coal and water beforehand to set up and run plants seamlessly.