Govt to auction 10 mines in 3rd tranche by August, says coal secretary

The government said on Thursday it will auction 10 coal mines in the third tranche with reserves of 858.19 million tonnes for steel, cement as well as captive power plants and the process will be completed by August end.

The government has so far auctioned 29 coal blocks in two tranches to private companies and garnered over Rs 2 lakh crore, surpassing CAG's loss estimates of Rs 1.86 lakh crore in allotment of mines earlier without auction.

"We have lined up 10 coal blocks and all of these are in the unregulated sector... The auctions will be held from August 11 to August 17," Coal Secretary Anil Swarup said at a press conference in New Delhi.

"There has been lot of demand from the unregulated sectors in the nature of industries in cement, steel and so on ... So, these are the blocks which would be put up for auction," he said.

Of the total estimated geological reserves, these mines have extractable coal of about 356.245 million tonnes and they are located in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, he said.

"The notice will be issued on June 8... Bid due dates that is the submission of the documents is July 21," Swarup said.

He said the government will execute agreements with successful bidders by August 31 and so the process by and large will be completed by August 31.

The ministry has issued instructions to the Nominated Authority to conduct the auctions for mines classified for iron and steel, cement and captive power plant sector. The Supreme Court in September last year had cancelled allocation of 204 coal mines to companies without auction terming the same as arbitrary and illegal.