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Govt. to allot coal blocks to state entities for commercial mining: Swarup

April 06: The government is planning to allocate coal blocks to state owned entities to do commercial mining and supply the coal to small sector consumers, Secretary (Coal) Anil Swarup said in Kolkata on April 5.

“In order to meet the coal requirement of small scale consumers, we would be allocating blocks to the state entities to do commercial mining. They in turn will give allocations of coal to smaller units,” Swarup said.

He pointed that the government is very conscious of the fact that it is attempting to meet the requirement of large number of consumers and large acquirers and not those that are small scale sectors.

“When I say small, they are not actually small, but they can’t bid for a block. So how do we meet their requirement? For that, and this I will be announcing for the first time, that we would be allocating blocks to the state entities to do commercial mining. They in turn will give allocations of coal to smaller units. Those who cannot bid for coal blocks, can actually meet their requirement for coal from these commercial miners,” the Secretary (Coal) said.

Explaining the rationale behind allotment of coal to state entities, Swarup said, the government is trying to involve every stake holder in producing coal, not merely Coal India, which of course will be doing 1 billion tons. There will be state entities that will be mining coal and there will be private sector that will be mining coal.

“So that’s how we hope to fulfil the gap that we have right now in terms of coal deficiency. So the next logical step towards improving the coal production and meeting the requirement of small scale sector or the units which are not in small scale sector, but cannot get mine, should be able to meet their requirements from there,” he said.