Govt gets bids for 19 coal mines in commercial mining auction

The Ministry of Coal has received bids for 19 coal mines out of the 67 blocks proposed under the second phase of the auction for commercial mining. As many as 20 firms have cumulatively placed 34 bids for commercial coal mining. Burakhap mine, Jharkhand, received the most interest with five bids, followed by the Rauta mine, which got four bids. Real Estate companies Sunflag Iron and Steel and Aurobindo Realty placed bids for four coal blocks, the maximum bid by a single entity under the second round of the auction. Vedanta placed bids for one mine, and Bharat Aluminium Company, its subsidiary, placed a bid for another block. The ministry on March 25, set up the second auction for coal blocks where private players can participate without any end-use limitations. The first round of auction following the new commercial coal mining policy received a modest response from investors in November previous year, when financial bids for 19 mines were received out of the 38 blocks placed on auction. The 67 mines put up for auctions have entire coal reserves of around 36,000 million tonnes (mt) of fuel. Earlier, the government said for the second auction tranche, it would eliminate mines in the wildlife reserves which have over 40% green area, to reduce the concerns about the environmental norms. Currently, mines under prosecution or overlapping with active coal-bed methane blocks were also not covered in the latest list. From 3.4 lakh mt of total coal reserve in the country, mines with extractable reserves of 2.3 lakh mt at present stand allotted to various entities. The public sector currently owns blocks with mixed reserves of nearly 2 lakh mt. Hindalco Industries, Aditya Birla's Group and Adani Power Maharashtra also placed a bid for one block each. A few other bidders include Prakash Industries, Shree Sai Urja, Rungta Mines, and Adhunik Power. Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC), an undertaking firm by the state government submitted one bid as well. Image Source Also read: Ministry of Coal revises timelines for second tranche of coal auctions Also read: Coal mine auctions: Commercial tranche 2 gains traction