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Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi on Wednesday said that the centre has no intentions of privatising PSU miner Singareni Collieries Company (SCCL). The Minister was responding to a question raised by Congress MP from Telangana Uttam Kumar Reddy in the Lok Sabha.
Joshi pointed out that SCCL is a joint ownership of Telangana government and the centre on a 51:49 equity basis. Since the government of Telangana is the majority stakeholder with 51 per cent, it is not possible for government of India to privatise SCCL.
Responding to another query from Reddy on auction of coal blocks in Telangana, the Minister said since the launch of auctions, no one is raising objections against the transparent systemadopted by the Centre.
States such as Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have also adopted auctions even though BJP is not the ruling party in those States. The entire revenue through auctions are going to the State governments, he added.
To a separate query in Lok Sabha on coal auctions, Joshi said the Ministry had completed the auction process for 38 coal mines in first round for commercial mining which was launched on June 18, 2020 under Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015 (CMSP Act) and Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act, 1957 [MMDR Act].
The auction process received a good response from the bidders. Out of 38 mines put on auction, 20 mines were auctioned with a success rate of 53 per cent.
On coal block auction in Telangana, he said that four coal blocks--Kalyan Khani Block-6, Koyagudem Block-III, Sathupalli Block-III and Shravanapalli located in Telangana were offered for allocation by way of Auction for Sale of coal under the provisions of Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 and the rules made thereunder.
“Thereafter, the State government of Telangana requested to cancel the auction of these four coal blocks and to allocate them to SCCL. However, as per the extant policy followed by the Ministry of Coal, all the coal blocks are now being offered for allocation by way of auction for sale of coal. Further, the State Government entities including SCCL may participate in the auction and take the block(s) as per prescribed norms,”Joshi added.
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