Coal ministry offers 25 commercial mines in 12th round of auction

The Ministry of Coal will offer 25 commercial mines as it kicked off the 12th round of commercial coal mine auctions on Thursday.

 

The blocks include 18 mines under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, and seven under the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015. Of the total, 13 are fully explored blocks while 12 are partially explored.

 

Additionally, under the second attempt of Round 11, the coal ministry is offering three partially explored coal mines under the MMDR Act, providing significant investment opportunities while reinforcing domestic coal production and energy security. The ministry earlier this week concluded the 11th round, successfully auctioning 12 commercial mines.

 

After the launch, a senior official of the ministry informed that a pre-bid meeting for the 12th round will take place on April 11 and the auction is scheduled for June 9.

 

“We are continuing to focus in an end-to-end manner, starting from our exploration efforts, on how it could be speeded up,” said Vikram Dev Dutt, secretary, Ministry of Coal. “We are looking afresh at our framework for exploration, what the possible interventions could be, and where we could speed up the exploration framework so that more and more mines continue to be available at a faster pace to meet the demands of this great nation.”

 

Coal mines were awarded to private companies and state-owned utilities over the last nine years, after the Supreme Court in 2014 cancelled all coal block allocations made over the previous two decades. From 2021 onwards, the coal ministry opened up the coal mining sector for private players for merchant sales as well, as opposed to limiting mineral auctions to end-user industries like power plants.

 

Since the inception of commercial coal mine auctions, the Ministry of Coal has so far auctioned a total of 125 coal mines, with a combined production capacity of 273.06 million tonnes (mt) per year. These mines are expected to generate an annual revenue of Rs 38,767 crore, attract capital investment of Rs 40,960 crore, and create employment opportunities for approximately 4.69 lakh people.

 

The initiative aims to enhance domestic coal production, reduce import dependency, and bolster India’s energy security.

 

India is the second-largest producer of coal after China, and relies on it to meet nearly 75 per cent of its electricity demand. India also imports high-grade coal from countries like Indonesia and Australia that is not locally mined and is vital for blending with domestic coal to improve efficiency, as well as for running imported thermal power plants.

 

India on March 20 crossed the record annual coal output of 1 billion tonnes and produced 1.03 billion tonnes, constituting a 5.24 per cent uptick over the total production of 953.3 million tonnes in 2023-24.