In the second round of auction of commercial coal, Ministry of Coal has received technical bids from 34 companies. These companies include Vedanta Limited, Balco, Hindalco, Sunflag Iron & Steel, Adani Power and Adhunik Power etc. Most of the bidders are from steel and iron industries.
Three government companies, Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation Limited, Jhar Mineral Resources Private Limited, MP Natural Resources Power Limited have also filed their bids.
Sunflag Iron & Steel Company and Aurobindo Realty have filed the highest number of bids. Jharkhand’s Burkhap Small Patch Coal Mine has received the highest number of 5 bids. The Coal Ministry has shortlisted 19 mines for the second round of auction. Out of these mines, 10 are fully explored and 9 are partially explored mines.
Out of these 4 are coking coal mines and remaining 15 are non coking coal mines. The Coal Ministry said in a statement that two or more bids have been received for eight coal mines.
The central government had opened the coal mining sector to private companies in 2020, marking their entry into the coal mine and its commercial sale after 47 years. The coal sector was nationalized 47 years ago. Auction of coal has been opened to non-mining, MSME and foreign companies through the Amendment Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015. The two-part auction was concluded in November, when companies had filed bids for 19 of the total 38 coal blocks.
The bidders included Adani Enterprises, Hindalco, Vedanta Ltd., Aditya Birla Group’s Essel Mining, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. and some new and non-mining companies such as Aurobindo Realty, Yazdani International, JMS Mining and Boulder Stone Mart. About 65 per cent of the bidders were not themselves coal users. After this, the central government decided to allot the mines for commercial use under rolling auction.
