Union Cabinet on Friday approved a proposal to provide a one-time window to public sector undertakings to surrender coal mines that are not in operations without any penalty. Briefing media, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said Cabinet also approved continuation of the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) till March 2023.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the proposal during its meeting on Friday, the Coal Ministry said in a statement.
The CCEA "has approved the Ministry of Coal's proposal for providing a one-time window to the Central and State PSUs to surrender non-operational mines without penalty (forfeiture of bank guarantee) and without citing any reason," the statement said.
This may release many coal mines which the present Government companies are not in a position to develop or are disinterested and could be put for sale as per the present auction policy of the government. Government companies would be given three months to surrender the coal mines from the date of publication of the approved surrender policy.
After the cancellation of coal block allocations by the Supreme Court in 2014, to avoid immediate disruption of coal supplies to thermal power plants, the government allotted many cancelled coal mines to PSUs via allotment route.
The allocation route was expeditious and it was expected that the coal requirement of State Gencos would be met from those blocks. The revenue share payable by state/central PSUs is fixed on per tonne basis unlike private sector who have to bid.
Till December last year, 45 out of 73 coal mines allotted to Government companies, remained non-operational and due date of commencement of mining operations in case of 19 coal mines is already over. Delays were on account of reasons beyond the control of the PSUs.
Government also said that the intended targets that will be achieved by Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) include establishing 10,000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) as well as 101 Atal Incubation Centers (AICs), and supporting 200 startups via the Atal New IndiaChallenges.
Total budgeted expenditure of Rs 2,000 crore plus shall be incurred in the process of the establishment and supporting the beneficiaries, said the statement.
The mission has been set up under the NITI Aayog, in accordance with the Finance Minister's declaration in the 2015 Budget speech.