Amid the demand for a special dividend if disinvestment in Coal India fails, the state-owned company has scheduled a board meeting next week to consider payment of an interim dividend.
"A meeting of the board of directors will be held on January 14...To consider payment of interim dividend, if any, for the year 2013-14," Coal India said in a filing to the BSE.
The Finance Ministry, seeking to meet its disinvestment target of Rs 40,000 crore for current financial year, wants CIL to dole out a special dividend if the government's stake sale does not take place.
"If CIL does not go for divestment, then they have to provide us a special dividend," Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram told PTI in an interview.
The stake sale could fetch over Rs 9,000 crore to the exchequer at the current market price.
In 2012-13, CIL had paid a total dividend of Rs 8,842.91 crore to the government, the highest ever in the history of the company.
The CIL disinvestment has been hanging fire because of opposition from the trade unions. The government holds a 90 per cent stake in the mining company.
It had originally planned to divest 10 per cent in CIL and lowered it to 5 per cent, or 31.58 crore shares, on account of the stiff opposition.
Coal India shares jumped 5.22 per cent to Rs 290 on the BSE following the announcement by the company. The record date for dividend payment has been fixed at January 20.
