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The Coal Ministry has extended the deadline to June-end for companies submitting applications to participate in the competitive bidding for three coal blocks.
“We have extended the last date for receiving applications to June-end due to a request from bidders,” an official source said.
Earlier, interested companies were asked to submit applications by May-end, the source added.
As of now the Government has received 36 applications from companies such as Jindal Steel and Power Ltd and Tata Steel in response to a tender for allotment of mines.
The Government had in February put three mines in Jharkhand and West Bengal for auction for captive use.
The much-delayed auction features mines that have total reserves of 500 mt.
The Centre had earlier drawn flak for delaying the auction and the CAG had said allotment of 57 mines to private firms without auction had resulted in a notional loss of ₹1.8 lakh crore to the exchequer.
The Ministry of Coal offered three blocks for auction for captive use to steel, cement and sponge iron companies — two in Jharkhand and one in West Bengal.
The blocks in Jharkhand include Jhirki & Jhirki (West) of East Bokaro Coalfield having geological reserves of 267.91 mt coking coal for steel (blast furnace) and Tokisud-II of South Karanpura Coalfield with 127.692 mt of reserves for a cement plant.
The mine in West Bengal, Andal Babuisol of Raniganj Coalfield, has about 103.841 mt of reserves for sponge iron.
Last year, the Government had allocated 17 coal mines to central and state public sector units, including four to NTPC. It had planned to auction 54 coal blocks with total estimated reserves of about 18 billion tonnes.
Amid the controversies shrouding coal blocks allotment, the Government for the last two years has been saying that the auction would take place shortly.
The Cabinet last year in September had approved the methodology for auctioning coal blocks, providing for upfront and production-linked payments and benchmarking of coal sale prices.
The Government has set up an inter-ministerial panel to examine applications from companies for the allotment of three coal blocks on tariff bidding.
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