Indian government to initiate new rounds of coal auctions next month

Indian government to start another round of coal auction next month which belong to the 204 coal blocks that were cancelled by the Supreme Court last year, announced Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday.

No official number was declared as to how many coal blocks would be put on auction although an inside source had revealed on Monday that there will most likely be 15-20 coal blocks in the fresh round of auctions.

This announcement comes at a time when the government is facing litigations from Jindal Steel & Power whose coal mines was cancelled by the government due to extremely low winning prices. The coal block was going to be allotted to the state-owned Coal India Limited but JSP managed to get a stay order from the court preventing the government from cancelling three coal mines, Gare IV/2, Gare Palma IV/3 and Tara coal blocks in Chhattisgarh.

Coal mines won by Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco), the Gare Palma IV/1 mine has already been rejected and allocated to CIL.

Last week, the Parliament approved the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Bill, 2015 on the last day of the first half of Budget session. Approval came at the nick of time as the ordinance was due to lapse of April 5.

There are also plans to allot 43 coal mines to central and state PSUs this week.