The bidding of coal mines for commercial purposes may get further delayed as issues such as base price for the auction are still undecided.
According to industry watchers, the debate is whether the Coal India notified price for certain grades of coal can be an appropriate scale to set the auction base price for these mines.
In a bid to boost production, the Centre allowed private companies to mine coal for commercial use in February 2018. The Centre had planned to begin auctioning coal mines with no end use restrictions in December 2019. But, till now there has been no progress.
