Govt opens the door for commercial coal mining

Government to allocate four coal mines for commercial mining in the fiscal year 2017-18. Adding to that, the government has chalked out a plan to allocate 25 other mines, out of which 2 of them will be allotted and rest 23 will be auctioned.

The government is preparing a plan of action for initiating the process of allocating mines. Out of the 23 mentioned coal mines, some of them will be allocated for coking coal and some for sectors other than power, like cement, steel.

As per the Coal Mines Special Provision Act of 2015, the government can open the door of commercial mining for the private players, which would also create competition for the state-run Coal India Limited. The details of end use of these mines are not yet specified, however, soon the discussion papers prepared for commercial mining will be put out in public domain.

Apart from coal mines, there will be approximately 250 other mining areas put to auction in the next fiscal year, out of which most of them will come from the major mineral producing states like Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.