Coal auction's third tranche to begin on Tuesday

New Delhi: The third round of coal auction will begin this Tuesday and 22 applications from companies including Hindalco, Vedanta, JSW Steel and SAIL have cleared the initial stages for a total of five mines on block.

The government will hold auction for the third tranche of coal blocks during August 11-13, a top official said, while adding that 22 applications have been found technically valid.

The government will put five coal blocks, having total extractable reserves of over 2O0 million tonnes, on the block for this round.

Pursuant to the Delhi High Court case, the schedule for e-auction of Jamkhani Coal Mine shall be announced at a later date, official sources said.

The government had last month received a total of 31 bids from companies including SAIL, JSW, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) and Vedanta.

Three companies -- Crest Steel and Power, Godawari Natural Resources Ltd and Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) have technically qualified for the Bhaskarpara Coal Mine.

Hindalco Industries, JSPL and Vedanta have technically qualified for the Chitarpur Coal Mine whereas Bhushan Power & Steel, Hindalco Industries, JSPL and Vedanta have technically qualified for the Jamkhani Coal Mine.

Five companies -- ACC, Crest Steel and Power, Emami Cement, Grace Industries, Jaypee Cement, JK Lakshmi Cement have technically qualified for the Majra Coal Mine.

For the Marki Mangli - I coal mine, Grace Industries, Lloyds Metals and Energy, and Topworth Urja and Metals have qualified whereas for the Parbatpur Central Coal Mine, JSW Steel, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd and SAIL have qualified.

The highest number of six bids each were received for Majra coal block in Maharastra and Jamkhani coal mine in Odisha, while Chitarpur mine in Jharkhand received five bids.

Mines like Parbatpur Central, which could not be sold earlier, have received bids from industry majors like JSW Steel and SAIL.

Big private sector players like JSW, Hindalco, Jindal Iron and Steel, BALCO, Bhushan Power and Steel, ACC and Vedanta apart from SAIL and RINL are in the fray.

The tender process for third round of coal auction started on June 8.

The government had earlier said it will auction 10 coal mines for steel, cement as well as captive power plants.

It has so far auctioned 29 coal blocks in two tranches to private companies and garnered over Rs 2 lakh crore, surpassing CAG's loss estimates of Rs 1.86 lakh crore in allotment of mines earlier without auction.

Coal Secretary Anil Swarup had earlier said that the government will execute agreements with successful bidders by August 31 and "so the process by and large will be completed by August 31".

The Supreme Court in September last year had cancelled allocation of 204 coal mines to companies without auction.