Coal ministry plans to surrender undeveloped blocks and put them up for auction
The coal ministry is considering a plan where it would allow entities holding dry fuel blocks to surrender them if they are not in a position to develop due to technical issues. This will help the government to ramp up production from these surrendered reserves.
This would be done by putting the surrendered reserves on immediate auction for commercial mining.
In addition, companies holding coal blocks, which they are not able to develop, will be allowed to surrender to them without any financial penalty after a committee examines their proposals, the ministry has said.
According to its agenda for the current financial year (2021-22) released last week, the ministry said the plan would be prepared soon.
In addition to this policy, the coal ministry is also planning to allow new allottees to sell half of the dry fuel produced, which is left with them after meeting their captive requirements.
This will help the ministry to meet the growing demand for coal from power producers across the country, said the agenda document of the ministry.
Also, this incentive will encourage the allottees to produce coal in larger quantities and sell it commercially.
According to ministry data, total domestic coal production saw a marginal decline of around two per cent in 2020-21 as production stood at 716 million tonnes, as against 730 million tonnes produced in 2019-20.
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