NEW DELHI: The government expects to save Rs 20,000 crore by allowing power companies to divert coal supply from Coal India to efficient power plants , power and coal minister Piyush Goyal said today.ET had first reported that the government is considering a proposal to allow companies to divert coal supply to efficient power plants from inefficient plants to generate more electricity with the available fuel.Goyal said the proposal to allow "efficiency-based swap" between power projects of a group is being prepared by the power ministry and will be soon put before the Union Cabinet for consideration."The proposal is expected to result in savings of Rs 20,000 crore. We have calculated that the scheme could yield savings of Rs 9,340 crore in terms of additional power generation, less freight charges etc when implemented in just 45 plants of NTPC ," said Goyal.The minister said the swapping is proposed to be permitted within power projects of same corporate group as well as among plants of different companies. ET had on October 19 reported that the swapping is proposed to be started with the power projects of state-run NTPC and extended to private companies later.At present, there is no provision for coal supply swapping. However, the government had in February approved a scheme to swap coal supplies between power plants with the nearest source of fuel to save costs and decongest railway network. The scheme, implemented by power plants of some central and state-run utilities, led to savings of Rs 1,100 crore.