Domestic coal producers are seeking legal opinions to prevent de-allocations of coal blocks.

The Government has submitted before the Supreme Court that of the 218 blocks under scrutiny, the Court could be lenient towards 46 (40 producing and six soon to start production), and allow them to operate. But, the miners feel that all the blocks awarded between 1993 and 2010 should be left with the developers.

The miners, under the aegis of Coal Developers Association, have already intervened in the ongoing case at the Supreme Court. “The developers are individually also consulting their legal counsels,” said an official of company involved in coal mining.

An official of the Coal Developers Association said that, “cancellation of blocks is not a remedy. Lot of effort and time have already gone into starting work on the blocks including employing people for the projects. Besides, why penalise the developers, who have just gone by the then Government policy and taken blocks.”

The fact that a lot of projects have not taken off because of constrained fuel supplies must be kept in mind before arriving at any decision, said another industry player. As per industry estimates, the 40 operational blocks are currently producing anywhere between 45-50 million tonne annually.

For 2014-15, the projected production from these blocks was 53 million tonne.

Supplies mainly were to nine power plants including one ultra mega power project at Sasan.

The other beneficiaries from these blocks were companies in iron and steel and cement sectors.

The producing blocks are owned by companies such as Naveen Jindal’s Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, Aditya Birla Group’s Hindalco Industries, and RP Sanjiv Goenka Group’s Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation.

The blocks are mainly located in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

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