The Hindu Business Line : Coal mine allotment to 28 PSUs soon

The Ministry of Coal would finalise allotment of coalmines to another 28 Government companies for captive use within the next few days, Ministry sources told Business Line.

The companies include several State Electricity Boards as well as Central Government undertakings like the National Thermal Power Corporation.

The objective is to give approximately 20 billion tonnes of reserves to companies other than Coal India Ltd (CIL) and the Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) for undertaking mining operations.

Mines containing estimated reserves of around 17-18 billion tonnes have already been allotted to 94 companies in both the public and private sectors. Some of them have even started production. The Ministry is following up with the other allottees to expedite early production, failing which their allotments may even stand terminated, sources said.

Allotment under State Dispensation Scheme

Allotment of mines to the 28 companies would be made in the current week under the State Dispensation Scheme.

"After this, another 20 applications from the private sector would still be pending with the Ministry. The processing of these applications too would be taken up very soon," sources said.

Explaining the Government thrust to increase coal production outside CIL and SCCL, informed sources said, "The objective is to have around 300-400 million tonnes of coal from the captive users by 2010-11. In any mine, around 60 per cent of the reserve is generally mined. So from a reserve of 20 billion tonnes, the total output over a 30-year period would come to 12 billion tonnes or 400 million tonnes annually."

But as the gestation period for coal mines could vary anywhere between 3 and 5 years, it would be safe to set a target between 300 million tonnes and 400 million tonnes of coal from these sources annually by 2010-11, sources said, adding that the actual production is less than average in the initial years and usually increases from the third year onwards.