As many as 41 coal mines with estimated reserves of 16,980 million tonne (MT) are up for grabs, with the government on Thursday launching the maiden auction after it allowed private players to bid for coal blocks, without any end-use restrictions. This would also be the first set of coal assets to be auctioned off through the new market-determined revenue share model that replaced the fixed fee/tonne regime that turned off private investors. Also, seven of these assets are unexplored ones, and the investors will enjoy certainty of tenure from the prospecting to the production stages.
The mines that are going under the hammer are located in Madhya Pradesh (11), Chhattisgarh (9), Jharkhand (9), Odisha (9) and Maharashtra (3). The assets also include two coking coal mines and two blocks with both coking and non-coking reserves.
