States to garner Rs6,656 cr in annual revenue from commercial coal mining auction: Pralhad Joshi
12 Nov 2020
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States will garner a total of Rs6,656 crore in annual revenues from the successful conclusion of the nation's first ever commercial mining auction, union minister for coal Pralhad Joshi has said.
Speaking to the media in New Delhi on Monday, after completion of the bidding process of the auction, Joshi stated that 19 mines have successfully been auctioned, which is the highest number of successfully auctioned mines in any tranche of coal auctions.
“The results of these auctions are historic and clearly proves that opening up the coal sector under the dynamic and visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a step in the right direction and is propelling towards making the nation `Aatmanirbhar’ in coal,” Joshi said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India’s first auction of coal mines for commercial mining on 18 June 2020.
Joshi said the bidding for the mines has witnessed fierce competition and companies have offered great premiums. The highest premium remained at 66.75 per cent whereas the average premium remained at 29 per cent.
Out of 38 mines put on auction, financial bids were received for 19 mines and the success of the auction remained at 50 per cent. Against this,the average success rate of the previous 10 tranches of coal auctions remained at about 30 per cent as only 35 mines could be auctioned, out of 116 mines put on auction during the last 10 tranches.
Joshi said almost 65 per cent bidders were from the ‘non-end user’ category like real estate, infrastructure, pharma, etc, which is a positive sentiment shared by the industry after removal of ‘end use’ criteria from the bidding process. 42 companies participated in the auction, out of which 40 were private players. Even two PSUs - Nalco and Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation Ltd - have participated in the auction.
Out of the 19 mines successfully auctioned, 11 are opencast, 5 are underground mines and the remaining 3 are a mix of underground and opencast mines. These mines are spread over 5 states - Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand and Maharashtra - and have consolidated peak rated capacity (PRC) of 51 million tonnes per annum (MTPA).
