Government is moving forward on Coal block allocations. Initially, it started with 10 Coal block auctions. Coal Ministry planning to offer 4 Coal blocks to Power sector and rest to the Non-power sectors.

The Central Government is planning to offer 4 Coal blocks to the Power sector out of the proposed ten, that to be auctioned in the first lot through competitive bidding in the first tranche.

The Coal Secretary, SK Srivastava said that the government was planning to concretize the roadmap for the auction. The Coal Ministry examined that there have 29 Coal blocks that would be put for auction through competitive bidding route.

Srivastava said, “The Government would auction the Coal blocks after deciding on which sector should be offered. It was yet to finalize the sectors, for which the other six blocks would be offered in the first tranche.”

The Government was confident in completing the auction by March. The Coal Ministry was also in the process of finalizing new bidding rules and a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) for public feedback which had already been issued.

The draft RFP included that if an allottee was found to have directly or indirectly engaged in a corrupt, fraudulent, coercive, undesirable or restrictive practice in the bidding, then it will not be eligible to participate in any tender or RFP for another five years. Incidentally, the Ministry was trying to incorporate strong clauses to prevent any corrupt practice.

– Sourced