Crisil lowest bidder for coal blocks auction

Global firm Crisil has emerged as the lowest financial bidder for the Coal Ministry's contract to prepare the methodology for determining reserve price for coal block auctions.

"Crisil emerged as the L1 bidder (the bidder which quoted the lowest price) when the financial bids were opened. The consultancy work would be allocated to Crisil only after examining its documents," a source in the know said.

Crisil provides ratings, research, and risk and policy advisory services.

Of the six bidders in all, Crisil, SBI Caps and PwC had been shortlisted by the ministry after the technicals bids, sources said. Deloitte was also among the early bidders.

In February, Coal India Ltd subsidiary - Central Mine Planning & Design Institute (CMPDI) - on behalf of the Coal Ministry, had invited an expression of interest for providing consultancy services.

CMPDI has been assigned the task of hiring a consultant for the methodology of fixing the reserve price of blocks and finalising the bid document, and assist in bidding process.

A Coal Ministry official had earlier said that the Ministry will put 54 blocks on auction in the first tranche, once the methodology is fixed.

"Of the 54 coal blocks to be auctioned, 18 would be for power sector, two for steel sector, 12 for commercial mining and rest for sponge iron and cement sector," he had said.

Earlier, Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal had said the government is almost ready to auction coal blocks through competitive bidding.

In an initial report, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had estimated a Rs 10.6 lakh crore loss to the exchequer on account of allotment of coal blocks during 2004 to 2009 without auction to 100 private and public sector companies.

However, CAG Vinod Rai later said the media reports quoting the loss of Rs 10.76 lakh crore did "not even constitute our pre-final draft and are exceedingly misleading".