Press Trust Of India
New Delhi, Feb 14: The maiden auction of coal mines got under way Saturday, with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Cement bagging the first mine through e-bidding for Rs 798 crore. GMR group has bagged a coal block in Talabira mines of Orissa in the second phase of e-auction conducted in the later part of the day.
After clearing the technical bidding stage, entities from Reliance, Adani, Essar, GMR, Vedanta and Aditya Birla groups became eligible to bid for two blocks — one in Orissa and the other one in Madhya Pradesh.
Coal Secretary Anil Swarup termed Saturday’s bidding as aggressive and said that ‘‘it is good for the Government (states) as it would fetch good revenue.’’
The five bidders which were technically qualified for the Talabira mine are Adani Power, Essar Power M P Ltd, GMR Chhattisgarh Energy Ltd, OPG Power Generation Pvt Ltd and Sesa Sterlite Ltd.
Reliance Cement beat Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) and OCL Iron & Steel to bag the Sial Ghoghri coal mine in Chhidwara district of Madhya Pradesh, a top official said.
The mine has reserves of 29.38 million tonne and a extractable reserves of 5.69 million tonne.
The company bid Rs 1,402 per tonne to get the mine. The block was alloted to Prism Cement earlier. The mine is earmarked for the non-power sector.
The auction for another coal mine (Talabira 1) in Orissa for the power sector was continuing at 1700 hrs.
After the Supreme Court allocation of 204 mines in September, the government decided to auction the blocks. It is putting up 19 blocks on sale in the first tranche. Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters that money which the government will get from the auction will be utilised for the development of the states, specially eastern states.
Around 134 bidders have cleared the initial stage of eligibility for participating in the coal mine auction.
Coal blocks in Belgaon (Maharashtra), Kathautia (Jharkhand) and Sarisatolli (West Bengal) would be put under the hammer Sunday. Belgaon and Kathautia mines have been marked for non-power sector.
Belgaon block has mineable reserves of 14.18 million tonne while Kathautia has reserves of 26.011 million tonne.
