The Cabinet took a slew of decisions on Wednesday, including one that requires private sector power companies to bid for coal linkages.

However, there was no official communication on whether there was a discussion on the much-awaited Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016. This decision was expected to be taken up on Wednesday as it is proposed to be introduced in Parliament on Thursday.

The approved new policy for coal linkages will allow all long-term linkages of individual State government-owned power generating stations to be clubbed and assigned to the respective States or their nominated agencies.

If the State government wants to deploy the coal linkage to a private sector power plant, an auction will be held among the competing private plants, where the source of coal, quality of coal and quantum of power and delivery point for the power shall be indicated up front.

Similarly, for Central government power generating stations, the coal linkage will be assigned to the company that owns the station.

Both State and Central government power generating companies can then choose to allot the coal linkages among their generating stations.

Here, the criteria for use of a coal linkage will be plant efficiency, coal transportation cost, transmission charge and overall cost of power.

The Central Electricity Authority, in consultation with all stakeholders, will now issue the methodology for implementation of use of coal assigned to States in their own stations, other State generating stations, Central government stations and independent power producers.

Further, the Cabinet also approved moving a resolution in both houses of Parliament for adoption of the Railway Convention Committee 2014’s recommendation that for 2014-15 and 2015-16, the rate of dividend be determined at 5 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively, on the entire capital (excluding dividend free capital) invested in the Railways from General Revenues.

The Cabinet also approved adoption of the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. A statement said this will bring transparency in collection and dissemination of official statistics.