Government may allow commercial mining of coal after auction: Finance Minister

In a major policy development government will allow commercial mining of coal by private companies after allocating mines to public sector companies and auction to specific end users. Allowing private companies into commercial mining will help raise coal output as state monopoly Coal India, which produces about 80 percent of the nation's coal has missed all its output targets in last four years. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that 'First you give it to the state and central PSUs. Thereafter, you make a pool of all actual users and have an auction. 'Then the extra resource, while preserving the character of Coal India, without disturbing it, you then start exploring the possibility of commercial mining.' However, the minister has not given a timeline for allowing commercial mining by private firms. The government had last month promulgated an Ordinance for auctioning the 204 coal blocks whose allocation was cancelled by the Supreme Court in September. The auction and allocation of coal blocks through a transparent methodology would ensure that coal exploration will begin and the actual users will get the fuel rather than importing and putting a burden on current account. However, describing the government's move to reallocate the blocks by e-auction as 'not at all a welcome decision,” the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has said it condemns any move to nullify the Coal Nationalisation Act.