A total of 10 blocks will be on offer in the third round of coal auctions, which will take place between August 11 and August 17, said Coal Secretary Anil Swarup on Thursday.

“All the blocks are for the unregulated sector (steel, cement and captive power plants). Of the 10, five blocks are those that went unsold in the first two rounds of auctions,” he added.

The blocks have a cumulative peak rated capacity of 13.47 million tonnes per annum and have extractable reserves of 356 million tonnes.

Process tweaked

The Coal Ministry has also tweaked the auction process for the third round.

“This time, we will treat multiple bids from one company as one bid when calculating the 50 per cent qualified bidders after the technical bid,” said Swarup.

He added that while it probably makes sense to consider multiple bids from one promoter group as one bid, it won’t be feasible since there is no legal definition for a business ‘group’.

The notice inviting tenders for the 10 blocks will issued on June 8. In the earlier two rounds, 33 mines/blocks were auctioned, raising over ₹2-lakh crore for State governments over a 30-year period, according to replies given in the Lok Sabha by Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy.

Swarup also said that a policy to auction coal linkages to unregulated sectors is expected to be ready within a month. The ministry will put up the draft of the policy for stakeholder consultations on June 4.

After the policy is finalised, coal linkages for the unregulated sector will be given only through auctions. Swarup said the existing fuel-supply agreements to the unregulated sector will be terminated by July 2016.

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