Coal allocation for spot e-auction declines by 8% in April-January

State-owned Coal India allocated 24.87 million tonnes of dry fuel for the spot electronic auction (e-auction) during April-January, down by 8.19 per cent over the same period last year.

CIL had allocated 27.09 million tonne (mt) of coal in the year-ago period, according to the government data.

For January 2020, the coal allocation for the e-auction scheme fell to 3.62 mt from 4.83 mt in the corresponding month of 2019.

Coal distribution through e-auction was introduced to provide access to coal for such buyers which are not able to source the fuel through available institutional mechanism.

Single-window service

The purpose of e-auction is to provide equal opportunity to all intending buyers for purchasing coal through single-window service.

CIL accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic output. The coal allocation under spot e-auction scheme had declined 37.7 per cent to 34.34 mt in 2018-19.

The government had earlier asked the mining major to fast-track its ambitious one-billion tonne production target and achieve the goal by 2023-24.