The Coal Ministry is unlikely to auction mines in the first quarter of FY17 and the strategy for the remaining quarters will depend on demand, reports a business daily.
The Coal Ministry is unlikely to auction mines in the first quarter of FY17 and the strategy for the remaining quarters will depend on demand, reports a business daily.
It may be recalled that the fourth round of coal mine auctions had to be cancelled in December due to low bidding interests, says the financial newspaper.
There were almost no takers for the coal mines in the fourth round of auction, as supply exceeded demand and global prices too were not supportive.
Nine mines with 1.167 billion tonnes of reserves were on offer in the fourth round.
“Today, the situation has reversed - it is now a demand side problem rather than a supply side one,” Coal Secretary Anil Swarup told the paper.
Increased domestic availability of coal has also helped cut the country’s import bill by INR 28,000 crore through a 15 per cent reduction in volumes.
Coal India Ltd’s (CIL) additional output in the last two financial years is about 73.98 million tonnes (MT).
In FY16, Coal India produced 42.28 MT more coal, hitting an output of 536.51 MT.
In addition, Singareni Collieries Company Ltd produced 61 MT in FY16.
Following the Supreme Court’s September 2014 directive to de-allocate 204 coal mines, the Government has been conducting fresh auctions and allocation to the public sector.
Out of the 55 coal mines that were auctioned and allocated last year in three rounds, so far 10 coal mines are operational and have produced anywhere between 10 and 11 MT.
In all, 28 coal mines were auctioned to the private sector and 27 coal mines allocated to central and state PSUs.
There are still 149 coal mines that can be auctioned to the private sector or allocated to state and central public sector units.
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