The CESC has approached the state electricity regulatory body for revision of prices. The firm claimed that the recent hike in prices of coal from Eastern Coal Fields by nearly 15 per cent has hit the company hard.

The vice-chairman of the CESC, Sanjeev Goenka, on Thursday said the hike in coal prices has affected the company but he refused to divulge its exact financial impact.

He also said that with the government making it mandatory to import one-third of the total coal required for its thermal plant at Haldia, the group has started searching for coal blocks in other countries, which it plans to acquire. “Since sourcing coal from the acquired blocks in foreign countries would be cheaper than importing coals, we have been looking for overseas coal blocks,” said Goenka. The company zeroed on six coal mines in Indonesia but found that the actual reserves of the mines were far less than what they had assumed them to be.

“Our search for coal blocks will continue and we would grab any blocks with reserves ranging from 30 million tonnes to 600 million tonnes in countries like Australia, South Africa and Indonesia,” he said.

He said that due to the use of imported coal at the Haldia plant, the per unit generation cost would be 32 paisa more than from the other CESC plants that use coal from Coal India limited.

Goenka said that a number of the company’s projects were being stalled due to non-availability of land. Even the completion of the Haldia project, which includes setting up of three 200-Mega Watt plants, has been stalled due to the non-availability of land, he added.