Learn this trick from Government of India.
It owns Coal India Limited, which is the major supplier of coal in India. Using its clout, Government of India makes Coal India produce just enough, less or more coal as per its desire.
Coal goes into production of electricity. In the country 65% of all electricity is produced using coal.
Now friend Adani owns coal mines in Australia. He has also been importing coal from Indonesia. According to some, he has inflated the import bills too thus siphoning off 12,000 Crores in inflated bills.
But leave that aside, that is an allegation and was under investigation till friend Modi came to power. Now the file has stopped moving. We need to move on though.
Government can get as much coal as it wants from domestic producers including Coal India Limited.
So, to help friend Adani, Government of India issued a mandate. The mandate was that all thermal plants across the country will blend 4 to 5% of local coal with imported coal.
A government that was interested in saving foreign exchange, imported coal is paid in Dollars, would have stopped import when it was more or less self sufficient, but Modi Sarkar is Modi Sarkar, it wants to help friends make money and in turn make money for itself and the party too. Electoral Bonds come handy you know!
Thus the mandate. Hear Ye, Hear Ye, all will blend their local coal with 4-5% of imported coal.
The beauty of this is that imported coal is 10 times more expensive than local coal!
There is a saying in India, that if you trade in coal, you are bound to get your hands dirty.
In this case, neither Adani nor Modi Sarkar are getting their hands dirty. It is the citizens that are suffering higher electricity costs because of this mandate.
When electricity production becomes expensive, the cost is transferred to consumers.
That is why production of goods and services that require use of electric power are expensive in India, so much so that we can not compete for exports in the international market.
You see, helping friends and winning elections is more important than the plight of the citizens.
Not only did Modi Sarkar issue this mandate, it has now recently extended the mandate for FY24.
Elections are coming….