The Ministry of Coal (MoC) has decided to initiate sales of eight coal blocks marked under the fifth tranche of auctions for commercial mining.
Unlike the earlier tranches, the bidding for the entire lot would be conducted in a single day on 13 September, 2022.
The current round of auction has received dull response. Notably, the sales process was started with a pool of 100 coal blocks comprising new and rolled-over blocks that remained unsold in the previous tranches.
However, bids were received only for 15 blocks in the technical round. Of these, seven failed to qualify for the final round as they had received a single bid. As per auction scheme, a block requires a minimum of two bids to enter the financial round.
Eventually, a total of 21 technically-qualified bidders will compete for the respective blocks for which they had shown interest in the auction based on revenue-sharing mechanism.
Among the blocks, Ghogharpalli and its Dip Extension blocks garnered the higher number of seven bids, followed by Marki Mangli-IV and Jitpur each receiving three bids. The remaining blocks fetched two bids each.
List of coal blocks marked for financial bid round
Reserve in million tonne | Ghogarpalli are two separate blocks
Sale of Rampia coal blocks
Apart from the fifth tranche, the MoC had launched a second attempt for sale for coal blocks under the third and fourth tranches in which a total of 13 blocks were put on offer.
From the lot, only Rampia and Dip Side of Rampia qualified for the financial round that will take place on 14 September. These are two adjacent blocks but considered as one for the sale process.
State-run miner NLC India Limited along with JSW Steel and Jhar Mineral Resources are in the fray for these blocks.
A single bid received against the seven other blocks in the second attempt were passed as technically qualified bidders. However, no decision has been taken regarding their allocation.
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