Nation’s first ever commercial coal mining opens doors to Rs 6,656 crore annual revenue for states
In a first, the central government received financial bids for 19 coal mines out of 38 coal mines put on auction and the success rate of the auction was about 50 percent. It is the highest number of mines auctioned successfully if compared with any earlier tranche. In the earlier 10 tranches of the auction, the success rate remained only 30 percent as 116 mines were put on auction, but only 35 mines could be auctioned.
Union Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi termed the outcome of the auction as historic and that the step of opening up the coal sector has been in the right direction. It was on June 18 this year that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched India’s first auction for commercial mining of coal.
He said a total revenue of Rs 6656 crore will be garnered by the states annually from the nation’s first-ever auction for commercial coal mining.
Joshi added while the mines witnessed fierce competition, the companies have extended great premiums among which the highest has been 66.75 percent and the average premium stood at 29 percent. Out of the 42 companies which participated in the auction, 40 were private players. Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation and National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) were the two PSUs who participated in the auction.
Notably, out of the 19 successfully auctioned mines, 11 are opencast, while 5 of them are underground mines and the remaining 3 mines are a mix of opencast and underground mines. Spread over five states: Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Chattisgarh, these mines have a peak rated capacity of 51 million tonnes per annum (MTPA).
