The Ministry of Coal has received a total of 99 bids for 36 coal mines under two tranches – sixth round and second attempt of fifth round – of commercial coal mine auctions.
Under sixth tranche of auctions, a total of 86 bids both online and offline were received against 32 coal mines, and three bids were received only offline but not online. Two or more bids were received for 25 coal mines, and single bid were received for 7 mines. Of these 32 coal mines, 10 coal mines are partially explored whereas 22 are fully explored. The cumulative peak rated capacity (PRC) of the fully explored coal mines is 85.62 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). Further, 31 coal mines are non-coking coal mines whereas one is coking coal mine.
Under second attempt of fifth tranche, a total of 10 bids have been received against four coal mines, where two or more bids have been received for two coal mines and single bids have been received for two coal mines. All these four coal mines are fully explored coal mines. 2 coal mines are coking coal mines and 2 are non-coking coal mines. The PRC of these 4 coal mines is 4.34 mtpa.
A total of 59 companies have submitted their bids in the auction process. This is the highest ever number of bids received in commercial coal mine auctions, since launch.