Calcutta, March 21: NTPC Ltd, the country’s single largest power producer, today said it hoped to sign a fuel supply pact with Coal India very soon.

“The issue was almost resolved in today’s meeting. We hope to finalise everything in the next meeting,” NTPC chairman and managing director R.S. Sharma said here today. Both NTPC and CIL directors will meet again next month.

Sharma was in the city to attend a meeting with Coal India chairman and managing director Partha S. Bhattacharyya and other key officials.

“We have decided to meet once in a month, either in New Delhi or in Calcutta, to resolve all issues with NTPC and to ensure that everything goes well,” Bhattacharyya said.

The agreement is a long-term pact between the coal producer and NTPC to ensure a dedicated supply of fuel. It has been delayed by a few months due to differences over the “trigger level”.

Earlier this year, in a meeting with CIL, Jairam Ramesh, Union minister of state for power, had agreed to specify an actual supply quantity as the benchmark for signing the deal.

The minister had agreed on CIL’s proposal to set the trigger or the minimum guaranteed supply quantity at 90 per cent of the actual supplies made in 2007-08. Violation of the minimum guaranteed supply level would attract penalties.

The power ministry has also suggested that the tenure of the agreement be reduced from the proposed 20 years to five years.

NTPC has about 24,000MW thermal power capacity and procures over 100 million tonnes of raw and beneficiated coal from CIL.