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The last block of the third round of coal mine auction went to Jaypee Cement, a subsidiary of Jaypee Associates. Jaypee Cement won the Majra mine in Maharashtra for Rs 1,230 per tonne. The extractable reserves of the mine are 14.92 tonne and the floor price at which bidding started was Rs 800 per tonne. The company will pay the state government Rs 1,853.26 crore for a period of 30 years.
Jaypee Cement had earlier won Mandla South in Madhya Pradesh during the first phase of auction at a price of Rs 1,852 per tonne. As a group, this is Jaypee Associates’ fourth win in the three phases of auction till yet. It had earlier won one non-power block — Mandla South — during the first phase and one non-power block — Mandla North — and one power block — Amelia North, both in MP during the second phase.
Majra mine was earlier allotted to Gondwana Ispat before a Supreme Court order last August struck down all coal block allocations made over the past two decades. The first phase was for Schedule-III producing power and non-power blocks and subsequent phases were for Schedule-II about to produce blocks.
The third phase of auction was strictly for unregulated sector i.e. iron, steel and cements manufacturing. There was forward bidding model for these blocks wherein the bidders quoted above the floor price and the highest bidder wonthe block. This phase had blocks which could not be auctioned in the earlier phases as they were involved in any legal tussles or whose allocation was cancelled by the government. The earlier two phases of the coal auction for 40 producing coal blocks were held in February-April 2015 fetching the mine bearing states cumulative revenue of Rs 2.85 lakh crore for a period of 30 years. Both power and non-power sector participated in the same.
