Eight coal blocks for auction by January

Mines from earlier auction to be operational by 2016, said Coal Secretary Anil Swarup

Going ahead with its plan to offer coal mines to private companies, the government would offer eight more blocks in fourth tranche of auction to non-power sectors.

The auction proceedings would commence from November 20 and the bid due date in December 31. The e-auction of the coal blocks would run from January 18 to 22, 2016. The sectors which will participate are iron & steel, cement and captive power plants.

“We are hopeful of giving vesting order to the winners by March 2016,” said Anil Swarup, secretary, ministry of coal. These eight mines are located in the states of Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal with cumulative geological reserves of 1.15 million tonne.

Going forward, the coal ministry would auction coal linkages to the state utilities through tariff based bidding under the UDAY scheme for power distribution sector revival. “We have identified coal blocks under the UDAY scheme wherein we would auction coal linkages to the states which commit to the distribution reforms. States would be allotted the coal blocks who can then auction it through tariff based bidding to its power utilities,” said Swarup.

The plan is still under draft stage and will be finalised as when the states come on board for power sector revival program.

The coal ministry said from the first tranche of operational coal blocks which were auctioned and allotted to private companies and states, respectively, 29 out of the 33 have received vesting order.

“The currently operational coal mines are producing close to 5 million tonne of coal and by the next year, we are hopeful that 29 more would start production,” said Swarup.

In the earlier three phases of mine auctions, the government has awarded close to 45 coal mines to both power and unregulated sector unlocking revenue of Rs 3.5 lakh crore for a period of 30 years for the mineral rich states. While the mines were auctioned to the private companies, state power utilities did not have to go through auction and were allotted the blocks.