Ordinance to make coal block allocation transparent: Centre

The intention behind bringing an ordinance on coal blocks allocation is to make the process transparent, union Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said here Thursday.

The central government last month decided to bring an ordinance to resolve the issues of coal blocks arising out of the Supreme Court quashing their allocations.

According to the ordinance, all the cancelled coal blocks will be put in a pool for auction to end-users in the three core sectors of power, steel and cement.

The auction of these mines would be done in a transparent manner through e-auction to actual users of the captive coal mines.

Goyal told the Lok Sabha that power charges would not go up after the auction process.

He was replying to a question by Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia as to why the government was in a hurry to bring in the ordinance.

Goyal said the government will not have any discretion in the allocation of coal blocks now and the intention was to make the process transparent and smooth.

"By 2019, there would be an 18 percent increase per year in production of coal," he said.