Home Coal Update Commercial coal mines auction schedule revised; e-auction in October and results in...

Commercial coal mines auction schedule revised; e-auction in October and results in November

2710
0

New Delhi, August 9: Online auctioning of coal blocks for commercial mining and selling to private firms will begin in October and final winners will be announced in November, a government notice said on Saturday. The Centre has also extended the deadline for various auction procedures, including visiting the site, selling tender papers, and sending technical bids.

In a revised schedule shared on MSTC ‘s designated coal auction authority e-commerce site, the final date for bidders to send queries has been extended to September 11. The first time-limit expired on 23 July. Several investors raised questions about the timing of the auction citing Covid-19 as the dampener, in earlier comments submitted to the coal ministry.

The due date for submitting a technical bid is September 29 according to the new schedule and e-auction will take place during October-November. The last deadline for filing the site inspection request has been extended to September 18. It was the 15th of July. The e-auction starts on October 19, and runs until November 9, 2020.

Many investors have asked the government to delay the auction process by three months, arguing it would help bidders make informed decisions.

The Auction is a two-part, technical and financial round. The technical bids will be assessed by the appointed coal auctions authority — a joint Secretary-level official from the Coal Ministry. Bidders will be expected to apply their eligibility requirements to the appointed authority, along with an initial bid.

Last week, the Centre agreed to limit the entry into commercial coal auction of neighboring countries like China. Earlier, under the automatic route for coal mining operations, the Centre had allowed 100% foreign direct investment (FDI), including the related processing infrastructure.

The Centre launched the auction of the coal mine — for industrial mining and private sector sales — in June. Liberalized tender terms were used to attract foreign players, non-mining entities and large miners. It amended the Coal Mines Special Provisions Act, 2015, in May, to simplify the auction process and attract considerable interest from investors.

The detailed schedule for the auction is listed below:

The schedule for further processes like approval of successful bidder, intimation to successful bidder, issuance of vesting order/allocation order will be notified later.