It’s raining money for coal-bearing states. While the auction of 19 producing mines completed last month is to get them Rs 1.2 lakh crore including royalty streams over a 30-year period, on the first-day of bidding for the near-operational blocks, the winning prices went past the lowest successful bids in the first phase.
This belied the subdued expectations of even policymakers about these Schedule III mines where, unlike in the case of operational (Schedule II) blocks, no investments have been made in mine infrastructure.
Of the three blocks auctioned on Wednesday, all in Jharkhand, the Jitpur block, the one reserved for the power sector and with extractable reserves (ER) of 65.53 million tonne, was grabbed by Adani Power for Rs 302/tonne. It may be recalled that the winning price for schedule II blocks reserved for power sector ranged between Rs 108-1,110/tonne.
Usha Martin emerged as the winner of Brinda-Sasai block, which has ER of 25.4 million tonne and is meant for the unregulated sectors, by offering Rs 1,804/tonne. The range of final bid prices for schedule II mines reserved for unregulated sector was Rs 918-3,552/tonne. At the time of going to the press, the highest bid for the third block (Moitra) that was up for grabs on Wednesday, had reached Rs 1,332/tonne. The Moitra block’s ER is seen at 29.91 million tonnes and is reserved for the unregulated sector. The total number of Schedule III blocks to be auctioned in the current (second) phase, which is to be concluded by March 9, is 14. In all, 83 blocks are to be either allocated directly to PSUs/or auctioned by the end of the current fiscal.
