Auctioning of coal blocks began on Saturday with two mines -- Sial Ghoghri in Madhya Pradesh and Talabira I in Odisha.
Talabira-I, reserved for the power sector has 33.84 million tonne of mineable reserves and the qualified bidders include the likes of Adani Power, Essar Power, GMR Chhattisgarh Energy, OPG Power Generation and Sesa Sterlite.
Sial Ghoghri is for the non-regulated sector and the bidders participating in the auction are Hindustan Zinc, OCL Iron and Steel and Anil Ambani Group's Reliance Cement. The block has 5.61 million tonne of reserves.
“Bidding for Sial Ghogri has just finished and the winning bid is for Rs 1,402 per tonne. The winning bidder will have to pay that amount for extracting each tonne of coal to the Madhya Pradesh State Government,” Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy Minister, Piyush Goyal said on Saturday.
After the technical stage, 134 bidders were eligible to participate in the financial rounds. Saturday is the first day of the financial bid rounds.