Litigations have forced the Coal Ministry to postpone auctions of two more mines from the third tranche auctions.
This would mean only three mines will be auctioned in the third tranche of auctions as against a plan to sell 10 mines. While four were dropped due to lack of bids, three have been now dropped due to ongoing litigation.
Auctions for Chitarpur coal mine in Jharkhand with extractable reserves of 61.555 million tonne was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. on Wednesday with Hindalco, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd and Vedanta Ltd, but was postponed.
Parbatpur Central mine, which was supposed to be auctioned on Thursday, has also been withdrawn from the list. This was an unsold mine from the previous two rounds and has 52.16 million tonne of extractable reserves. The mine had JSW Steel and public sector companies Steel Authority of India Ltd and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd as the qualified bidders.
It is expected that on Thursday, Majra in Maharashtra will be sold. The block has extractable reserves of ₹14.92 million tonne and the qualified bidders are ACC Cement, Jaypee Cement Corporation, JK Lakshmi Cement and others.