Eight out of 67 coal blocks receive multiple bids

Only eight out of the 67 coal blocks offered during the second tranche of auctions under the commercial mining regime have received more than one technical bid, the Ministry of Coal said on Friday.

“A total of 34 bids have been received for 19 coal mines of which 10 are fully explored mines and nine are partially explored mines,” the Ministry said in a statement. “Two or more bids have been received for 8 coal mines.”

Out of the 19 blocks in which bidders showed interest, 10 have received a single bid.

Twenty firms have submitted their bids in the auction process, the Ministry said. Vedanta Resources Plc subsidiaries Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd and Vedanta Ltd have each bid for one block, as have Adani Power Maharashtra Ltd and Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation Ltd.

Four bids have been received from Aurobindo Realty & Infrastructure Private Ltd and Sunflag Iron and Steel Company Ltd each, while Shree Satya Mines Private Ltd and South West Pinnacle Exploration Ltd each bid for three blocks.

The highest number of bids were received for Burhakhap Small Patch (5), Rauta Closed Mine (4) and Jogeshwar & Khas Jogeshwar (3) in Jharkhand and Bhaskarpara (3) in Chhattisgarh. Bhivkund, Gondkhari, Jhigador and Khargaon also received two bids.

Four of the 19 blocks are for coking coal and the remaining 15 are thermal coal blocks.

The auction process of the 67 coal mines was launched by the Ministry’s Nominated Authority on March 25. The last date of submission of technical bids was July 8. The online bids were decrypted and opened electronically in the presence of the bidders on Friday, the Ministry said.

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