One step back for coal mine reform: MDO contracts with state PSUs are back

Four years after the Supreme Court declared them illegal, the MDO model has become the private mining industries' route to cornering a larger piece of the coal mining business again

Cancelling the allocation of 204 coal blocks in August 2014, the Supreme Court said several of these had opened an illegal and arbitrary backdoor for the private sector to enter the mining business. The apex court found state government-owned companies formed joint-venture companies with the private sector to get coal blocks. These then handed over control to private players by signing mining development and operation (MDO) contracts. It held this practice of the state PSUs to be illegal (central PSUs were excluded from this ban).    

Unlike a plain vanilla subcontractor, a coal MDO is required to not just