It is a fierce competition that is witnessed by the auction of coal mines for commercial mining and the 19 blocks that went under the hammer can generate total revenue of around Rs 7000 per annum and create a lot of employment estimated around 69000 jobs to be generated once they are in full fledge functioning and when it is in total operations. Coal minister Pralhad Joshi has this vision of generating this amount so that country wealth and economy will grow and soon we become a country of rich in coals. The private players now totally take control over the auction of blocks for commercial mining and it is totally handover to private sectors. In a media conference the minister said that with a combined peak related capacity reaching 51 MT per annum, it is expected that these 19 mines will generate total revenue of nearly Rs 7000 Cr.This is a very smart step taken by minister because doing privatization is directly proportional to the amount of revenue generation. The manpower will increase and the resources will be highly automotive so that they can do a proper functioning and helps to generate the targeted revenue or even more than that.
It was broadly expected while launching the auction that investors related to mining, power and clean coal sectors would explore opportunities to many employees. However, the bidding process also saw players from sectors like real estate, infrastructure and Pharma industry as it is a very big project which needs a lot of human efforts and mindset of different types of industrialist and economist, a huge land is required to make this possible extent of mining and also it creates a lot of pollution which is need to keep in control or it will harm our environment. The platform is focused on pushing the boundaries of the energy and materials through high level, multi stakeholder taskforces, which brings and gathers leaders from the different sectors or industry like, electricity industry which takes control over the whole supply chain of electricity where it is needed the most and how much energy isgoing to be used for the project for example abig drill machine needs a lot of energy but a small machine needs less energy so it has to be inspected properly as required, the oil and gas sector, the mining and metal industry. In mining a lot of workforce is needed and again it needs a great capital and authority by higher authorities, the metal industry is also very much important because the metal that we extract from the rocks needs to be purified in the purest form. Accordingly, it needs a high end resources and materials. Chemical and advanced materials companies across the value chain.
The results of these auctions have been historic and this clearly proves that opening up the coal sectorwas a step in the right direction. As a testimony to the positive sentiment shared by the industry, when we decided to remove ‘end user’ criteria from the bidding process, almost 65% bidders were from the non-end user category. There is a huge participation in the auction in which total of 42 companies participated in the process of auction, out of which 40 were private players, the auction is performed on the basis of the money and wealth only few were allowed to take participation and only those were allowed who have proper resources to extract coal and these private companies are not allowed again to take part. Total 76 bids were received for 23 mines, wherein 19 mines had received two or more bids and were found eligible for opening of technical bids. This is a very good response according to me.
