Indian coal ministry has called upon fresh bids for sales of 27 coal mines to be auctioned under the Coal Mines (Special Provision), act.
The mines would be sold under three separate tranches-8th, 9th and 10th, to the companies engaged in specified end use in Iron & Steel, Cement and Captive Power Plants.
Under the 8th tranche, 20 mines spread across West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh have been offered for the specific use in Iron & Steel, Cement and Captive Power Plants, (excluding steel makers using coking coal).
Under the 9th tranche, 6 mines have been offered for the specific use in Iron & Steel, which includes 5 from Jharkhand and 1 from Madhya Pradesh.
Under the 10th tranche, a single mine earmarked for the specific use in Iron & Steel, Cement and Captive Power Plants, (excluding steel makers using coking coal), has been offered from the state of Odisha.
Detailed list of coal mines along with their location is attached herein.
The due date for bid submission has been set at 19 Sep’19. After undergoing a series of technical and financial bids, the successful bidder would then be approved tentatively by 12 Nov’19.
Noteworthy, the successful bidder would be entitled to utilise a minimum of 75% of the actual production in the specified end use plants and shall be allowed to sell up to 25% of the actual production in open market, the reform which has been carried forward from the previous round of auction.
Subdued Response in Previous Coal Mine Auctions
Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015 was enacted for the allocation of the 204 captive coal mines which were cancelled in 2014 by the Supreme Court.
Under the provisions of the said Act, 85 coal mines have been successfully allocated. Out of which, 25 have been allocated through e-auctions and 60 have been allotted to government companies.
The government carries out these mine auctions to ensure continuity in coal mining operations and promote optimum utilization of coal resources. However, the previous 4 round (tranche) of auctions have not garnered fruitful response, which were ultimately terminated.
In fact, since the beginning of FY16, the Coal ministry has managed successful auction of only two coal mines namely, Marki Mangli-I and Majra located in the State of Maharashtra which were allocated to Topworth Urja and Metals Ltd and Jaypee Cement Corporation Ltd respectively.
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