Mines Director Bipin Bihari Singh will be appointed nodal officer to facilitate auctioning of coal blocks. He will assist the Coal Ministry by furnishing status of proposals coming for blocks situated in Jharkhand and apprise it of the State Government’s comments.
The appointment has come in the wake of the March 18 reminder issued by the Ministry to appoint a nodal officer to take forward the task of identification and allocation of coal blocks under Rule 4 (3) of the Auction by Competitive Bidding of Coal Mines Rules, 2012.
The Ministry had, on January 30, and later on February 6 and March 7 written to the Chief Secretary of the coal-rich State on appointment of the officer.
Though the Mines Director has been selected for the post, the Ministry is yet to be updated with the name. “We have not received any name so far. Three to four States, including Jharkhand, have not responded to the letter that says the names be furnished positively by March 20,” said a senior official of the Coal Ministry.
When asked, Mines Secretary SK Barnwal said the Government had finalised the name and within a week, the Ministry would officially be informed about this.
“The Mines Director will be nodal officer and we will inform them soon. He will be assisting the Ministry in getting a response from the State Government and status of proposals received for coal block auction,” said Barnwal.
The official also added that proposals for non-allotted coal blocks of the State had started coming in. The Central Government has identified 54 blocks lying in the coal belts of seven States — Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh — with tentative reserves of about 19.1 billion tonnes of coal to be allocated for cement, sponge iron, surface gassification, power, and other projects throughout the country.
Out of this, 17 had been reserved for Government-owned companies and the rest, for open bidding.
Most of the unoccupied coal blocks of Jharkhand are located in Santhal Pargana area and would be put under the hammer as soon as the timeline set by the Ministry nears the end.