Authorities panel seeks carbon tax revision to discourage coal imports – Occasions of India

NEW DELHI: An inter-ministerial panel of officers tasked with charting a course for stopping coal imports by 2030 has beneficial elevating the carbon tax on superior imported gas and decreasing the identical on decrease high quality home produce.
The federal government presently costs a flat Rs 400 per tonne GST Compensation Cess for each imported and home coal. The panel, arrange by the coal ministryhas steered linking the cess to the heating high quality of coal to degree the sphere for customers each imported and home coal and discourage imports.
Underneath the present system, customers of home coal with excessive ash content material and decrease heating worth of three,000-3,500 kcal (kilo energy) bear a better cess burden per unit of heating as they should burn double the amount of gas in comparison with customers utilizing imported Gas with low ash content material and better heating worth of 5,000-6,000 kcal.
The present system finally ends up elevating energy tariffs as majority of technology firms burn home coal. Different customers comparable to sponge iron producers want superior imported coal, Based on the panel, each Rs 100 per tonne enhance in coal value pushes up energy tariff by 6 paise per unit. In different phrases, the present cess has an influence of 24 paise per unit.
The GST compensation cess assortment from imported coal stood at about Rs 8,359 crore on a complete import worth of Rs 22,8742 crore. This works out to three.6% cess. In distinction, cess collected from home coal stood at Rs 29,096 crore on a worth of Rs 11,7251 crore, translating into 25% cess.
The panel beneficial charging the rationalized GST compensation cess on ad-valorem foundation, the place it is going to be levied as a share of the value and linked to high quality, as a substitute of as mounted quantity.
India’s imports of thermal coal elevated 10% in 2023 to 176 million tonnes regardless of report home manufacturing.