Coal Minister Piyush Goyal will decide whether the award of three coal blocks at what is termed as a very low price is justified. The Nominated Authority, which was directed by the Coal Ministry to re-examine three bids, has submitted its report to the Coal Ministry on Monday. The three blocks include one to the Naveen Jindal Group.

While official sources remained non-committal to the findings of the report, they said that it is difficult to assess whether there was a cartel of bidders working on these blocks. However, what has been examined is how the bids moved and who the bidders were.

“All the pros and cons have been put in the report leaving the final decision to the Coal Minister with advice from the Secretary,” another source said.

“A decision is expected shortly,” he said.

The bids for blocks — Jindal Power’s Gare Palma IV/2&3, BALCO’s Gare Palma IV/1, and BS Ispat’s Marki Mangli III — were re-examined as they were auctioned for very low prices. While Jindal’s bid is for the power sector, the other two are in the non-power category.

If the Ministry feels that there has been rigging, these blocks will be handed over to the ‘Custodian’ – keeper of the blocks as defined under the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Second Ordinance.

If the Ministry decides to auction them again, it will be done only after April 2, once the ongoing process of awards is completed.

All the three blocks were producing blocks. Another source said that the report deals with issues such as quality of coal, infrastructure, and evacuation which were important to bid prices.

One of the bidders told BusinessLine that “no player would like to let go of a good opportunity.

“A significant component in the bids has been quality of the coal. If the quality has been found to be high on ash content it has resulted in prices dropping.”

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