The Ministry of Coal (MoC) has provided a new timeline for sale of coal blocks envisaged under the newly launched sixth tranche along with second attempt of sale under the fifth tranche of commercial mining auctions.
As per latest schedule, the deadline for various pre-bid activities has been extended, including sale of tender documents and registration for auctions.
Besides, offering prospective bidders an additional time for submitting their requests for coal blocks, the due date for technical bids is shifted to 13 January 2023 from earlier 30 December 2022.
Finally, the electronic auction, consisting of the financial bidding round, will commence in the first week of February 2023, which was earlier slated to begin from 24 January 2023.
It is to be noted that sale of blocks is executed through a two-stage bidding process on the revenue sharing mechanism. In the first stage, bidders are required to submit technical bids in terms of percentage (%) share of revenue payable to the government.
Post this, the technically qualified bidders, emerging out of ranking and elimination-based screening, take part in financial bid round where the bidder submitting the highest final offer is adjudged winner for the particular block.
Revised schedule of auction process
*Last date of registration: 5 January 2023
*Last date of sale of tender document: 9 January 2023
*Bid due date: 13 January 2023
*Opening of technical bids: 16 January 2023
*Examination of technical bids: 17 January-6 February 2023
*Conduct of electronic auction: 7-20 February 2023
Auction overview
The ministry launched the sixth tranche of auctions under the commercial mining scheme, by putting an offer for 133 coal blocks which is the highest in a single tranche.
These blocks are spread across coal bearing states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Bihar.
The key feature of this round of sale has been the introduction of 71 new blocks while the remaining 62 were rolled over from the previous tranches.
Apart from fresh sales of coal blocks under the sixth tranche, the ministry has separately initiated a second attempt of sale for 8 blocks that had received a single bid in the fifth tranche.
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