Public sector companies to get more coal mines

The Centre on Wednesday has formed a three-member committee chaired by the additional secretary in the coal ministry to examine the applications received from central and state public sector undertakings for allotment of coal mines under the provisions of Coal Mines ( Special Provisions) Act, 2015. The committee will submit its recommendations to the Centre for its consideration and allotment of coal mines.

Coal ministry sources told DNA that under Section 5(1) coal mines can be only allotted to the central and state PSUs. As per Section 11, a mine developer, which was working on the mine before the cancellation of coal mines by the apex court, can be retained by the allottees. He said that the government had allotted 29 mines under CMSP Act, of which 17 are operational. Some of the agencies who were alloted mines included Coal India, Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation, Odisha Mining Corporation, The Singareni Collieries Company, West Bengal Mineral Development and Trading Corporation and Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation under the provisions of the CM(SP) Act, 2015. Coal India may get about 10 mines in the current fiscal.

The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015 was enacted for the allocation of the 204 captive coal mines was cancelled in 2014 by the Supreme Court. Its objective is to empower the government to allocate the coal mines on the basis of competitive bidding to ensure continuity in coal mining operations and promote optimum utilisation of coal resources.

A high-level committee, constituted by the government to lay out the road map for the sector, has proposed only one-stage competitive bidding with a maximum mining lease duration of 50 years.