Coal news and updates

MoC seeks agreement with allocattee cos on 3 blocks

November 7: The Ministry of Coal (MoC), in separate letters to five state governments of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, in relation to the development of three coal blocks, has asked the allocattee company/corporation to enter into an agreement with the central government.

These three coal blocks are part of the 17 blocks identified by the MoC, and the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) had suggested that the modalities of development of the blocks should be left to the discretion of the allocatee state government, i.e. whether they would propose to form a joint venture, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) or any other form of professionally managed entity for developing and operating the respective coal mine.

In accordance with the norms of the auction by competitive bidding of coal mines, the central government has to enter into an agreement with the mine allocate.

Earlier, the IMC had directed the respective state governments to indicate the modalities for developing the coal blocks within three months from the date of allocation.

The Brahmani coal block in Odisha has been awarded to OMDC (58.90 mt), Gowa coal block in Jharkhand (25.74 mt) has been awarded to JSMDC and BMDC (25.74 mt) and Kerwa coal block in Chhattisgarh has been given to CMDC (56.47 mt) and MP State Mining Corporation (56.47 mt).

Previously, the Inter-Ministerial Technical Committee, after deliberating on aspects like availability of reserves, logistics for coal evacuation from the host state and the nature of the applicant companies as well as taking into consideration requests from host states, decided to let IMC take a call on the blocks, along with the proposal that the resources should be shared by the adjacent states.