A total of 22 companies including the mining arm of power behemoth NTPC, Jindal Steel and Power, Hindalco Industries and Tamil Nadu Distribution & Generation Corporation (Tangedco) have placed 35 bids for 18 blocks under the latest commercial coal mines auction.
Besides NTPC, four other PSUs including NLC India and Gujarat Mineral and Development Corporation (GMDC) have also submitted bids in the current round of auctions.
Under the seventh round of commercial coal mines auction, the Coal Ministry has offered 106 coal and lignite blocks. The last date for submission of technical bids was Tuesday.
As part of the auction process, technical bids consisting of online and offline bid documents were opened on Wednesday , the Ministry said.
35 Bids
“A total of 35 bids (both online and offline) were received under two tranches (7th tranche and 2nd attempt of 6th tranche) of commercial coal mine auctions,” it added.
Under the seventh tranche, a total of 34 bids both online and offline were received against 17 coal mines and two bids were received only online but not offline.
Of these 17 coal mines, nine are partially explored whereas the remaining mines are fully explored. The cumulative peak rated capacity (PRC) of the fully explored coal mines is 47.80 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). One mine is coking coal, while 16 are non-coking coal blocks.
Under second attempt of sixth tranche, a total of 5 coal mines were put up for auctions and one bid has been received against 1 coal mine which is a fully explored non-coking coal mine. The PRC of the coal mine is 4 mtpa.
Lignite miner NLC India, JSPL, and GMDC have placed bids for 3 mines each, while NTPC Mining and Hindalco Industries have put in bids for two blocks each. Tangedco and Odisha Coal and Power have placed bids for one block each.
The Ministry said that bids will be evaluated by a multi-disciplinary Technical Evaluation Committee and Technically Qualified Bidders will be shortlisted for participation in the electronic auction to be conducted on MSTC portal shortly.