Chhattisgarh is set to earn estimated revenue of Rs51,596 crore from its five mines auctioned among 29 in the country under the provisions of Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015 during the mining lease period. The specified end-users of the mines are in the non-regulated sector. The mines are Chotia, Gare Palma IV-4, Gare Palma IV-5, Gare Palma IV-7, Gare-Palma Sector-IV/8.
So far 29 coal mines have been auctioned under the provisions of Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015 and the Rules made thereunder. This was stated by Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy in a written reply to a question in the lok Sabha on Thursday.
The auction process for non-regulated sector viz Iron and Steel, Cement and Captive Power was based on forward bidding process where bidders had to submit their final price offer above the applicable floor price. In case of Power sector which is a regulated one, reverse bidding methodology was adopted where bidders had to submit bids below the applicable ceiling price, which shall be taken as fuel cost in determination of power tariff.
In case, bid price reaches Rs0 in reverse bidding, the bidding is based on additional premium payable to the concerned State Government, over and above the fixed reserve price of Rs100 per tonne, he said. Goyal further stated that revenue which would accrue to the coal bearing State Government concerned comprises of Upfront payment as prescribed in the tender document, Auction proceeds and Royalty on per tonne of coal production.
In addition, an estimated amount of Rs1,41,854 crores would accrue to coal bearing States from allotment of 38 coal mines to Central and State PSU’s, he said. The Minister further stated that out of these 29 coal mines, 16 are operational coal mines included in Schedule-II of the Act and 13 are non-operational included in Schedule-III of the Act. Milestones for development and production of coal from the auctioned coal mines have been prescribed under the Coal Mines Development and Production Agreement signed with the Successful Bidder.
The Minister further stated that a few complaints were received regarding cartelization in bidding. It is not possible to conclusively establish the same until investigation are carried out by Competent Authority. The Government has not approved the recommendation of NA for declaration of successful bidder in case of 4 coal mines namely Gare Palma IV/2&3, Gare Palma IV/1 and Tara as final closing bid price was not found to be reflecting fair value, the Minister added.
Notably, Chhattisgarh had only three ‘Non Working’ iron ore mines out of 15 as on April 15, 2015 in the State. The state-wise details of Working and Non-working mines of iron ore as on April 15, 2015 are as follows- Chhattisgarh — Working (15), Non Working (3) Andhra Pradesh Working (42), Non Working (20), Goa — Non Working ( 330), Jharkhand —Working (11), Non Working (46), Karnataka — Working (26), Non Working (69), Madhya Pradesh — Working (33), Non Working (3) , Maharashtra — Working (14), Non Working (12),Odisha — Working (37), Non Working (106), Rajasthan — Working (15) Non Working (2), Telangana — Working (4), Non Working (5).
This was informed by Union Minister of State for Mines and Steel Vishnu Deo Sai in a statement laid on the table of lok Sabha. Notably, NMDC recently commissioned its new iron ore mine in Chhattisgarh’s extreme insurgency-hit Dantewada district. The mine — Bailadila Iron Ore Deposit 11B, is located in Bailadila hills where the NMDC has already several massive high-quality iron ore mines spread out in Bacheli and Kirandul areas.
The NMDC has developed the mine having iron ore production capacity of 7 Million Tonnes Per Annum (MTPA) with an investment of more than Rs600 crore. With the commissioning of 11B Project Mine, NMDC has ramped up production capacity from present level of 25 MTPA to 32 MTPA from Chhattisgarh’s Bailadila Sector.
NMDC’s Chairman-cum-Managing Director Narendra Kothari had formally inaugurated the 11B Project in presence of Narendra K Nanda, Director (Technical), Rabindra Singh, Director (Personnel), TRK Rao, Director (Commercial), PK Satpathy, Director (Production, DS Ahluwalia, Director (Finance) and other senior officials of NMDC besides senior executives of technological partners.
A Memorandum of Understanding has also been signed between NMDC limited and Union Ministry of Steel, on the commitments of NMDC ltd, pertaining to its performance for the year 2015-16. The significant parameters of the MoU are production and sale of Iron ore including related Financials, Project Implementation, R & D efforts, Environment Monitoring, Energy Conservation, Quality Compliance, Manpower Productivity, Human Resource Management and Customer Satisfaction, it stated.